Days of Our Lives Archives

Days of Our Lives can be compelling when it wants to be.

I first fell in love with this soap years ago because of strong women like Jennifer and Hope dealing with serious problems and doing important, exciting things with their lives.

In recent times, it's fallen heartbreakingly short of the show I remember.

But every once in a while, there's a glimmer of what this show could and should be.

The way Ciara's rape was handled on Days of Our Lives during the week of 5-21-18 was an example of that, even though the writing for Abigail's rape during the same time period was deplorable.

Ciara Opens Up to Hope - Days of Our Lives

When Ciara's rape originally occurred, I hated it.

Sweet, shy Chase seemed an unlikely rapist, and the writers seemed to have an agenda to demonize him and his father Aiden in order to justify writing them out instead of exiting them from the canvas in any reasonable manner.

Plus the rape, like so much of the writing during that era, seemed to be nothing more than a plot point and was never addressed in any meaningful manner after it occurred.

But I have to admit, Ciara's struggle with it now that she is dating Tripp is everything I wanted a rape storyline to be.

It was annoying that it took two years for Ciara to have much of a reaction to what had happened to her, but the writers did the best they could with it. Plus, it is realistic for a rape survivor to believe she has put it all behind her until something triggers her a few years later.

Her conversation with Julie was awkward. I like to think of myself as a sex-positive person, but I wouldn't be comfortable discussing my sex life with my grandmother and Julie was awfully direct.

At the same time, Julie's concerns were valid, and her use of history was perfect. Larry Atwood raping Julie was before my time and I had to look it up to find out what she was talking about, but it makes sense that she would be concerned because of her own experience with this.

Julie's pushiness was in character and created just enough ambiguity for viewers to wonder whether Ciara was correct that her grandmother had put ideas in her head when she got triggered by Tripp wanting to make out with her or whether she was having a PTSD reaction.

And Ciara's shame and refusal to tell Tripp the truth was consistent with what many survivors of sexual assault feel, even though Hope was right that Tripp would be nothing but empathetic if he knew.

I would have rather Tripp talked to his cousin JJ, who had similar feelings of guilt once when he didn't hear Paige say STOP until she screamed it and worried that meant he had inherited a tendency towards rape from his father..

That would have been a more meaningful conversation than the one Tripp had with Will, whose amnesia made him clueless about pretty much everything, and would have given JJ something to do besides run into Lani all the time.

Either way, though, Tripp's confusion and misplaced guilt makes sense and this is a far more relatable and realistic conflict for this young couple than arguing over who Tripp should have voted for in a beauty contest.

Now if only the rest of the show could get on board with the way this storyline is being written, DAYS would be a top-notch serial again.

Stefan Blackmails Abigail - Days of Our Lives

This mess of a storyline with Abigail is one of the worst offenders. Abigail decided not to press charges against Stefan for raping her because he threatened to move forward with the case against Chad for assault if she did.

That was bad enough, but then Abigail miraculously remembered how her alters had behaved and declared loudly that she wasn't raped after all because she remembered consenting.

I was afraid DAYS was going to backpedal on calling this rape what it was, but I didn't think it would be quite this bad.

It's unrealistic for Abigail to remember anything she did when any of her alters were in control, and making her remember just lends credence to the myth that Dissociative Identity Disorder is a made-up illness that people use to get out of taking responsibility for bad behavior.

Leaving that aside, and ignoring the fact that there is legal precedent for the claim that people with DID cannot consent to sex and that having sex with an alter is statutory rape at best, there's also the issue of Abigail having very clearly told Stefan NO and ordered him to get away from her minutes before her Gabby alter took control.

Regardless of whether an alter -- who cannot consent to sex -- said Yes, Abigail herself said NO and Stefan deliberately triggered her dissociation to try to undo it.

Any suggestion that that is not rape is a suggestion that a woman's NO is not NO and that it's okay for a man to do whatever it takes to convert it to a YES.

The writers might have been trying to show that Abigail's mental illness is interfering with her understanding what happened to her, but since Stefan is facing zero consequences for the rape and Abigail is suddenly remembering consenting as Gabby, that doesn't really work.

Instead, it comes off as if we're supposed to agree with Abigail that she was mistaken to call it rape and that Chad and Jennifer are making excuses for her behavior by calling it mental illness.

Mateo Threatens Chloe - Days of Our Lives

Two other stories also treated sexual harassment and abuse as entertainment, further undermining the message of the Ciara story.

The Mexico story was problematic from the beginning, since Theresa was being treated as a sex slave, yet the sexual aspect of her problems was never addressed.

The original story was written by different writers, so the current regime was stuck with it, but they could have handled the resolution of it better than they did.

Instead, Mateo took Chloe as an additional sex slave and viewers were treated to a scene of her being forced to wear the dress her captor wanted her to wear and sing and dance for him, while Theresa was sold to Xander, who set her free in exchange for a promise that she would put in a good word with him for Victor.

If this story is supposed to show the horrors of sex trafficking, it's doing a poor job, since all of that happened without anyone feeling the slightest bit uncomfortable about being exploited.

And now, Theresa called Mateo to give him a heads-up that the authorities were coming for him, in addition to keeping her knowledge that Chloe was still being held prisoner to herself.

Theresa: I just wish I didn't have to leave Chloe behind. God forgive me for what I've done.
Maggie: And what exactly is it you've done, Theresa, that you need God's forgiveness for?
Permalink: And what exactly is it you've done, Theresa, that you need God's forgiveness for?
Added: May 25, 2018

Theresa is supposedly scared that Mateo will come after Brady and Tate if he thinks she told anyone about Chloe's dilemma, but her behavior comes off as selfish.

First of all, Mateo doesn't seem to have nearly the reach she thinks he has. This supposed drug lord spends all day wandering around his house making inappropriate comments to his female prisoners and lashing ot violently when he doesn't get his way.

He doesn't seem to spend much, if any, time actually engaging in the illicit activities that supposedly give him so much power, and he has very few underlings working for him. Instead, he's running his evil empire almost entirely by himself.

That cartoonish aspect of this story makes it hard to believe that he's really dangerous and not just a pervert that Theresa has real reason to fear.

I was left wondering how Mateo would even know if Theresa told anyone anything and how he would carry out his threats after being captured, since he murdered the only person who was helping him with his shady activities.

After gratuitously killing Miguel, whose only crime was allowing Chloe to have a 60 second phone conversation with her young son while being held at gunpoint, Mateo left her alone with the body to find a knife.

So he seems to be stupid in addition to not nearly as powerful as Theresa believes him to be.

View Slideshow: 17 Times Villains Were The Best Dressed Characters on TV

Meanwhile, John and Paul's attempt to rescue Chloe was just as silly.

Paul claimed that they had to go in on their own because the place is so heavily guarded the ISA can't touch it, but two private eyes can get in easily.

That made no sense whatsoever. It was right up there with Mateo having a door that's easily unlocked but that his prisoners are too scared to go through.

And once John and Paul entered the compound dressed like cat burglars, they should have expected an ambush when Chloe wasn't where she was supposed to be and they broke in so easily.

Instead, they were surprised by Mateo, who is one guy with a gun faced with two intruders who are both armed. So how exactly is this a threat to John and Paul?

Maggie: This thing with El Fiedo is just part of a pattern. Theresa uses bad judgment. She gets involved with dangerous men.
Eve: So I'm the lesser of two evils, is that what you're saying?
Permalink: So I'm the lesser of two evils, is that what you're saying?
Added: May 25, 2018

It seems like the craziness in Mexico is just a sideline to the real drama, which is Eve and Theresa's fight over Brady.

I'm surprised I'm enjoying this story as much as I am, since I never bought Eve and Brady as a couple and Theresa has been nothing but obnoxious since her return.

Theresa was so convinced that Brady would just take her back that she ordered Eve twice to just return the ring and step aside. The best part of this story was Eve calling her out on her selfishness.

Theresa: You're being incredibly selfish, Eve, and it needs to stop. Right now.
Eve: I'm being selfish, Theresa? Really? How did you come up with that one?
Permalink: I'm being selfish, Theresa? Really? How did you come up with that one?
Added: May 25, 2018

Eve really had Theresa's number, but Theresa didn't seem to know her half-sister nearly as well.

Her claim that Eve would never let jealousy and anger get in the way of doing the right thing was laughable. I would have paid good money to see Paige's ghost descend from Heaven to straighten her out on that point!

Eve being rewritten as a saint who is suddenly best friends with Jennifer is a weak point in this story. She herself acknowledges that this is the first time in her life that anyone has approved of her, but everyone's support of her would make a lot more sense if her past wasn't glossed over.

Maggie's problems with Eve began some 30 years ago, when a drunk Eve ran over her eight-year-old daughter while driving a stolen car, and her support of Eve now would be more understandable, if that history were acknowledged and she explained why she was putting it aside or if she struggled with wanting Eve with Brady yet knowing that supporting her would hurt her daughter deeply.

Of course, that would require acknowledging that Maggie has a daughter named Sarah who lives elsewhere, which the writers have been allergic to for several years, but still. Igonring this aspect of their hsitory makes her support of Eve seem contrived and confusing.

In addition, Eve schemed to break up JJ and Paige and ultimately took advantage of a drunk JJ to ensure she didn't lose control of her daughter. This, too, has never been acknowledged.

At the very least, Eve should be feeling that some of the things that have happened recently are her karma for what she did to JJ and Paige! And she should be missing her daughter more because of seeing clearly now how she hurt her, thanks to Brady and Theresa doing similar things to her.

Theresa's selfish and obnoxious behavior is enough to turn viewers off of this couple; we don't need the writers trying to force us to root for Eve by rewriting her character and making all of Salem support her.

Sonny Falls for a Scheme - Days of Our Lives

Meanwhile, Sonny fell for Leo's ridiculous scheme.

I agree with Will that Leo's false claim of sexual harassment only makes it harder for real victims to get justice. I also dislike this as a vehicle for getting Sonny and Will back together.

Paul has been made to play musical boyfriends too much already, and he's going to be left out in the cold yet again when Sonny and Will decide they are each other's true love at the end of this mess.

Adrienne's rant about Leo being a bad name was funny, though.

View Slideshow: 17 TV Weddings That Were Nearly Derailed

FInally, if Xander is going to stay on canvas, it would be nice if he found something to do besides wander around town making snide comments.

He keeps showing up everywhere Eric and Jennifer are to make fun of their relationship, which seems like a pointless use of his character.

What are your thoughts on Days of Our Lives during the week of 5-21-18? Whether you loved it, hated it, or were somewhere in between, I want to hear from you!

Don't forget to check back on Sunday for the Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

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Theresa demanded Eve step aside, Ciara struggled with memories of her sexual assault while trying to enjoy a date with Tripp, and Vivian turned out to be alive on Days of Our Lives during the week of 5-21-18.

Our TV Fanatics Christine Orlando and Jack Ori are joined by Tony from My Hourglass: A Days of Our Lives Fan Forum to debate Theresa vs Eve, Ciara's ordeal and all other things Days of Our Lives.

1. Theresa accused Eve of being selfish. Is that true? Should Eve simply step aside?

Christine: I know Theresa has been through hell, but it feels more like she is using Tate to get what she wants. I like Theresa, but I agreed with Maggie’s assessment in that I don’t think she’s good for Brady. He needs someone more mature and stable, and oddly enough, Eve appears to have grown into that role.

I never thought I’d be rooting for Brady and Eve as a couple, but after this week, I am.

Tony: Not necessarily. Theresa made the choice to leave, albeit for what she believed to be good reasons. She tried to tell Brady she didn’t love him anymore. She can’t just come back now and expect Brady to not have moved on.

Jack: Not just because Theresa said so. Eve needs to have self-respect and if Brady can’t make a decision or dumps her, she should move on and not look back. But Brady proposed to her minutes before Theresa showed back up, and now Theresa is acting like that was no big deal and that ring was really meant for her.

She doesn’t get to decide that. It’s up to Brady who he wants to be with and Eve whether she wants to risk getting her heart broken by staying involved.

2. Ciara was upset that Julie brought up her history of sexual assault before her date with Tripp. Was Julie wrong to do so?

Christine: No. Ciara obviously hasn’t dealt with her sexual assault, and I liked how Julie brought up both sex, and sexual assault, with no drama or embarrassment. Julie sharing her story was a wonderful use of the character’s history. I only hope that Ciara opens up and talks to Tripp, or else I fear their relationship is going nowhere.

Tony: While I love the use of history, it may not have been the best time to bring it up. Though, I’m glad we’re finally getting a storyline about Ciara dealing with it.

Jack: I would have been uncomfortable discussing my sex life with my grandmother if I were Ciara, but Julie’s concern was valid and based on her own experience. Plus, Ciara is trying to blame Julie for her distress so that she doesn’t have to face her feelings about her sexual assault.

3. Xander has been in Salem for a week, mostly shirtless. Rate your level of enjoyment from 1 (he needs to leave now) to 10 (please tell me he’s staying.) and why.

Christine: I’m giving him a 9, and I’m as shocked as anyone. I’ve never been a fan of Xander, but his return has been such fun. I love his sarcasm (it reminds me of Victor), and the way he get under everyone's skin. And watching him wander around Salem sans shirt has been quite the bonus. The guy must live in the gym!

Tony: 5. I’m waiting to see what kind of storyline they give him now that he’s been here a week.

Jack: I’m giving him a 2. He was shoehorned into the Theresa story and now is doing nothing but wandering around town making fun of people. If that’s all he was brought back for, it’s pointless to keep him on canvas.

4. Was Sonny getting involved with Leo stupid, naive, or just unlucky?

Christine: All of the above! Vivian (and now Kate) set Sonny up, but he should have been a lot smarter than this. Having sex on the office desk at work put the nail in his coffin.

Tony: Unlucky. I mean, how was he supposed to know Leo was setting him up?

Jack: Stupid. Sonny kept saying that he wouldn’t get involved with an employee, but he didn’t bother to get a letter of resignation in writing before doing so, and ignored the fact that Leo and Jeff the bartender were both incredibly pushy about him and Leo hooking up.

5. Who do you think is holding Vivian?

Christine: It’s such a Dimera thing to do, so if we’re going only with Dimera’s who are supposedly alive, I’ll have to choose Kristen. However, if we add the “supposedly dead” Dimeras to the mix, that list could grow considerably.

Tony: I’d like to think it’s André, but more than likely, it’ll end up being Ben.

Jack: I would also love for it to be André. I agree, it probably is Ben, since he’s supposed to have a big story coming up and he knew about Will’s resurrection. I can’t think what he has to do with Vivian, though!

6. What, if anything, disappointed you this week in Salem?

Christine: That Gabi is STILL sitting in prison, while half of Salem worries over Abigail.

That Theresa came back thinking that after months of being gone that nothing would have changed, although that does seem within character.

That JJ mostly dropped of the face of Salem once again! I’d love to see a scene of him visiting Gabi, or even running into Theresa.

Tony: Gabi being vengeful. And Lani, though it’s hard to be disappointed when I have such low expectations for the character in the first place.

Jack: All of the above!

JJ should definitely be involved in Abby’s storyline, and Theresa is being obnoxious and selfish. I can’t believe she called Mateo to give him a heads up about the father and brother of the man she supposedly loves coming after him!

Also, the backpedaling on Abby’s rape is gross.

7. What was your favorite quote, scene or storyline on this week’s Days of Our Lives?

Christine: Julie talking to Ciara about her sexual assault was one of the best scenes all week. I wish the show spent more time handling adult topics realistically. Also, Kayla helping Tripp plan his date with Ciara was very sweet. I enjoy seeing these two spend time together.

Tony: The return of Vivian was great! I know it was only a small part of the show this week, but I’m so excited that she’s back!

Jack: I hated the Ciara rape story, but the way this aftermath is being handled is terrific! This is the kind of thing I watch DAYS for and I want to see more of it.

Want more Days of Our Lives discussion? Head over to read Jack Ori's review, right here on TV Fanatic.

View Slideshow: 17 TV Weddings That Were Nearly Derailed

Theresa's re-entry story could have been powerful.

Theresa was more or less Mateo's sex slave after she was forced to join him in Mexico. She had to have sex with him that she didn't want to have, over and over, and she only came home because he sold her to someone else.

This could have been a dramatic story about a woman dealing with the aftermath of severe sexual trauma.

Eve could have been torn between her feelings for Brady and her desire to support her sister, plus feel resentful that at least Theresa survived, while Paige was still dead, and felt guilty about feeling that way.

The town could have been divided about whether or not to feel sympathy for Theresa and her plight, especially after PTSD drove her to still fear Mateo after she came home and engage in behavior that negatively affected other people.

Instead of all that, during the week of 5-29-18, Days of Our Lives chose to focus on Theresa trying to reclaim Brady and turned her into a villain in the process.

Caught in the Middle - Days of Our Lives

Theresa left Chloe behind when she escaped from Mateo, called Mateo to warn him that Brady's father and brother were coming to arrest him, and kept it secret from Brady that Xander was blackmailing her by threatening to tell Brady that she abandoned Chloe if she didn't do what he wanted.

When Chloe returned and she and Eve confronted Theresa, Theresa sobbed that she felt she had no choice because she was scared of Mateo.

This might have worked if the writing had been stronger. Part of the problem is that we only have Theresa's word for it that she was afraid of Mateo.

Jen Lilley's acting has been great, and she's shown Theresa to be frightened, but Mateo was far too cartoonish a villain to believe he really had as much power as Theresa claimed.

The idea that this guy was so powerful that neither the ISA nor Victor could do anything to protect their families from him was laughable. In addition to that being extremely unlikely, Mateo was not depicted as a powerful drug lord at all.

He was shown to be just some perverted guy who got off on possessing women and forcing them to do his bidding. He wandered around his complex all day long barking orders at his girls and didn't spend any time actually doing the other illicit activities that supposedly gave him his power.

Nor did he have many minions working for him, until John and Paul showed up and three goons suddenly showed up out of nowhere.

Plus, he was easily felled by Chloe stabbing him -- a rookie mistake that someone with the amount of power that Mateo allegedly had would never make.

His goons responded by saying that now that their boss was dead, the intruders would never get out alive, but the next scene showed John, Paul, and Chloe having made it out without any further trouble.

It's hard to feel sympathy for Theresa when there has been zero evidence on-screen that this guy was anybody to be feared.

When Mateo held a gun to Paul's head, I stabbed him in the back. What's your excuse for doing the same thing to me?
Chloe
Permalink: When Mateo held a gun to Paul's head, I stabbed him in the back. What's your excuse for doing...
Added: June 01, 2018

So when Chloe came back to town furious that Theresa had left her behind and then dropped the bombshell that Theresa had not only abandoned her, but had betrayed John and Paul and almost caused their deaths by tipping off Mateo to their plan to ambush him, it was easy to agree that Theresa had been selfish and heartless.

Once again, the writers seem to have taken the easiest path to fulfilling their agenda, which appears to be for Brady and Eve to reconcile and Theresa be shut out.

It's fine if Brady/Eve are endgame, but why do they have to be so obvious about it?

This happens far too much. The writers write a "triangle" that is no triangle at all because they demonize one of the choices and angelicize the other.

Years ago, when Marlena struggled to choose between John and Roman or Jennifer was torn between Emilio and Jack, it was compelling because viewers could make a case for either choice. These stories generated tons of discussions and debates. Viewers took different sides, and nobody knew for sure how the story was going to end.

These modern triangles are far less compelling. The writers don't worry about what's true to character, instead using the story to announce to viewers who they're supposed to root for.

Viewers end up either getting bored because it's obvious where the story is going or aggravated because they don't appreciate the writers telling them what to think.

In the Theresa story, it's especially problematic because neither woman has lived a saintly life, yet the writers have chosen to canonize Eve and seem to think viewers will just forget her checkered past ever existed if they refrain from mentioning it.

While the Chloe/Eve/Theresa scenes kept my interest, especially since they seem to be setting things up for a custody battle over Tate, I couldn't help thinking that it was ridiculous for Eve to talk about Theresa's selfishness as if she herself had never acted out of impure motives.

I always thought that Eve didn't really mean to hurt anyone but couldn't help herself, but that doesn't change the fact that she did things like hire a prostitute to try to seduce JJ away from Paige and then pick up where the prostitute left off when her original plan didn't work.

She also tried to move Paige to California so she wouldn't find out that her mother had slept with JJ.

She tried to steal numerous boyfriends from Jennifer, starting with making Jennifer think Frankie had cheated on her when they were both young adults.

She tried to break up her parents' marriage because she was upset that Shane was no longer with her mother, and her reckless behavior caused Kim to miscarry her baby.

She fell hard for the man who forced her into prostitution and was more interested in him than in the far more traditional life Shane and Kim tried to offer her.

And let's not forget the time Eve stole a car and ran over Sarah Horton, who was chasing a ball in the street, causing years of tension between her and Maggie which magically vanished now so that Maggie can take her side over Theresa's.

Ignoring all this history doesn't make it go away, and the glimmer of the old Eve that viewers saw when she warned Theresa that she'd be sorry if she hurt Brady didn't make much sense without acknowledging who she used to be.

Will, Paul, and the Past - Days of Our Lives

Will struggled with the question of whether or not to try to regain his memories.

This whole story rests on a ridiculous plot about a drug that can bring people back to life, but it's easier to suspend disbelief about this than about Theresa's alleged ordeal.

Paul: If all your memories come back and you remember what you had with Sonny, I'm going to be the odd man out.
Will: It wouldn't be the first time.
Permalink: If all your memories come back and you remember what you had with Sonny, I'm going to be the odd
Added: June 01, 2018

I felt bad for Paul. He's constantly being bounced between Will and Sonny, and is treated as nothing more but a temporary interloper between the two of them.

I really wish DAYS would bring on another guy for him, one that has nothing to do with Will and Sonny and their need to get over each other by getting with Paul.

Of course, it's possible that Will will still choose Paul after he gets his memories back. Paul and Will were attracted to one another when they first met, which was part of what led to the unraveling of Will and Sonny's marriage in the first place.

But since Will comforted Sonny after the Leo debacle, while Sonny seems to be softening towards Will in general, it really seems like this miracle drug is a vehicle to get these two back together.

I actually like Paul better than either of the other guys. Sonny has become unsufferable in the last few years, and Will was becoming very much like Sami before his death, resurrection, and amnesia turned him into a nicer guy again.

Paul deserves better than being the rebound guy who's eternally getting dumped.

As for Sonny, I'm finding this whole Leo storyline irritating.

Sonny's Legal Problems - Days of Our Lives

I agreed with Will that false sexual harassment claims just make it more difficult for real victims to get justice.

It was nice that Victor alluded to the #metoo movement with his comments about the current climate, but since Sonny isn't actually guilty, it fell flat.

Plus, the whole scheme is both stupid and confusing.

I don't understand why Kate, who was going to warn Sonny about the truth before her fatal altercation with Vivian, decided to blackmail Leo into going ahead with this plan.

Nor do I understand why Leo, who seems to genuinely like Sonny, went along with it

And it doesn't make sense that Sonny was so careful to avoid inappropriate behavior that he wouldn't touch Leo while they were working together, yet didn't bother to get Leo's resignation in writing before making out with him.

In addition, the texts Leo sent himself from Sonny's phone were sent at a time that Sonny was meeting Will for coffee, so it should be easy to prove that they are fake.

Gabi is Attacked Again - Days of Our Lives

These stories where a crime can be easily disproven have got to go.

I'm even more aggravated with Gabi's storyline than Sonny's.

She should have been released from jail as soon as the cops had Abigail's confession in hand, since that proved she was innocent.

Instead, Gabi was not only locked up for a long time after Abby's confession, but is now facing another bogus murder charge because her prison nemesis Dianne randomly decided to attack her again, choked her until she was unconscious, and then got herself killed.

Dianne was found with a syringe in her neck, and somehow it never occurred to anybody that Gabi would have had a hard time filling a syringe and stabbing someone with it when she only has the use of one arm.

Nor did the warden realize that looking at security tapes could easily clear up the matter of how Dianne ended up dead.

Instead, Gabi was immediately accused of the crime and denied her release despite the plethora of evidence ruling her out as the killer.

To add insult to injury, the whole attack was a stereotypical, overdone, and senselessly violent story about one inmate hating another one so much that she'd rather kill her than wait 24 hours for her to be out of her life forever.

Naturally, the guard on duty wandered off to smoke a cigarette, so Gabi had no recourse when Dianne attacked her.

There are a myriad of problems in prisons that DAYS could address with thoughtful writing. Instead, they again relied on stereotypes of correctional officers and cops being incompetent idiots and expected viewers to swallow the stupidity whole.

I really feel sorry for little Ari, who now not only has no clue her mom is in prison, but is expecting her to come home and is going to have her heart broken for the stupidest of reasons.

I loved seeing Ari have some family time with Will and Sonny. More of this, please, and less stories centered around gratuitous acts of violence.

But I knew they shouldn't have told her Mommy was coming home until it was a done deal and Gabi was on her way home. Now how are they going to explain this to her, especially since Ari doesn't know Gabi is in prison?

Even if Gabi did come home on schedule, Ari isn't going to understand why she is all beaten up when she was supposedly on a business trip.

I'm not a fan of keeping these kinds of secrets from kids in the first place, and I think it would have been a more powerful story if we'd seen Ari dealing with her mom being locked up instead of the guys keeping her in the dark. Plus keeping this secret is going to be impossible now.

Anyway, Gabi had better get out of prison fast, especially since Ben is about to hit the Salem streets again!

I know a lot of people are fans of Batty Ben, but I'm not one of them. He was a serial killer who killed three women in a violent manner, including one of my favorite characters, in addition to killing Will, and I don't see him as redeemable.

And if a serial killer is free to walk the streets of Salem while Gabi remains locked up for crimes everyone knows she didn't commit, that's just unconscionable.

It was good to see Marlena actually doing her job instead of getting kidnapped and waiting for John to rescue her, but it made no sense that she couldn't find it in her heart to recommend Ben remain committed.

Ben supposedly wasn't delusional anymore, but there's no other way to describe his belief that Will will forgive him for strangling him. Plus, he never answered Marlena's question about what he would say to his victims or their families if he could, and he seemed fixated on getting WIll to forgive him.

He seemed to think that because Will had been given a miracle drug that allowed him to live, it negated the horror of his crimes against Serena, Paige, and Wendy the midwife, plus his kidnapping and torture of Abigail.

Marlena never addressed that belief in any meaningful way, nor did she do anything to explore HOW Ben would stop himself if he had violent urges once he was released.

Meanwhile, the real Dr. Laura returned to whisk Abby away to Boston for treatment. I've never been impressed with Laura's abilities as a psychiatrist, and I'd rather Kim have this cameo appearance since she overcame Dissociative Identity DIsorder herself and has some idea what Abby's going through.

Plus, JJ was mysteriously absent from his sister's mental health crisis, while Jen went all out for Abby and never once mentioned her guilt over having not been there at all for JJ when he was suicidal.

There was a lot more disappointing stuff with Tripp and Ciara.

I appreciate DAYS finally writing the aftermath of a rape properly, even if it is two years too late, but it seems to be more or less a plot device to create yet another reason for Claire and Ciara to be at each other's throats.

Claire just happened to be dumped by Theo, who waited til she traveled halfway around the world to see him to inform her that he was no longer interested. She came home just as Tripp was reeling from Ciara having broken up with him to avoid telling him about her rape.

Naturally, Claire leaned in to kiss Tripp -- and like all Salem men, he was unable to resist the advance of a woman even though the one he really wanted had broken his heart 30 seconds before.

I'm so tired of the plot of a man jumping in bed with someone else immediately after his "true love" broke his heart. It wasn't cool when Rafe did it, and it's not cool now.

It makes it seem men are all driven by nothing but what's between their legs and is a cheap, overused plot device to boot!

A Deal With the Devil - Days of Our Lives

Finally, I'm not sure how I feel about Kayla's attempt to get Stefan to help with Steve's blindness.

I'm always thrilled any time I see Steve and Kayla on my screen. They are one of the few couples in Salem that is truly in love, rather than just being thrown together for the sake of having couples on the show, and their storyline is relatable and realistic.

But Kayla going to Stefan while Steve says he would rather be blind than deal with him, and then not telling him what she's done, looks like a conflict written to tear the couple apart.

I don't want to see Steve and Kayla at odds with one another over Kayla's attempt to help Steve regain his sight. That kind of nonsense is beneath this couple, and Kayla keeping this kind of secret is out of character for her.

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What did you think of Days of Our Lives during the week of 5-28-18?

Are you rooting for Theresa, Eve, or nobody in this twisted triangle?

Are you thrilled or annoyed that Tripp seems to be headed for rebound sex with Claire?

What do you think about the latest development in Steve and Kayla's storyline?

Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for our Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

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Chloe saved herself and came back to Salem to take her revenge on Theresa, Claire made a move on Tripp, and Ben Weston claimed to be sane!

Our TV Fanatics Jack Ori and Christine Orlando are joined by Kierstin from MyHourglass a Days of Our Lives fan forum to debate Theresa keeping quiet about Chloe, Laura treating Abigail, and if Will and Sonny are destined to be reunited on Days of Our Lives.

Should Theresa have told someone about Chloe being held by Mateo?

Kierstin: Yes. Theresa probably should have told someone about Chloe being held by Mateo, but Theresa was going to any length to protect Brady and Tate.

Jack: Absolutely. The writers have done a poor job of actually showing Mateo to be dangerous enough for Theresa's fear to be justified. And I still can't believe Victor doesn't have the resources to protect Brady and Tate.

At the very least, she should have called Shane and told him that she had been freed but had to leave Chloe behind and let him communicate that to John, since he was the ISA's lead agent on this thing.

Christine: She absolutely should have told Shane. Someone needed to know that Chloe was being held there and it’s not as though the ISA was running to save Theresa, so I can’t imagine they would have stormed in to save Chloe.

I know Theresa was trying to protect her family, but not at least telling Shane seems selfish and cruel.

Do you think Will might go back to Sonny if he regains his memories, or stay with Paul?

Kierstin: Will might possibly go back to Sonny if he regains his memories, because Will seems to be having feelings for Sonny anyway.

Jack: The writing is on the wall in my opinion. When Will patted Sonny's hand and then Sonny looked sad that he was relieved to hear from Paul, it was clear that they were starting down the path of Will and Sonny reuniting romantically.

Christine: I hope not! I was a fan of Sonny and Will but they were always a little mismatched. Paul and Will have such wonderfully chemistry. They trust one another and have a very mature relationship. I find that to be a breath of fresh air in Salem.

Is Laura the right choice to treat Abigail? Would you prefer Abigail’s therapy to be on or off screen?

Kierstin: I think Laura is the right choice. I would prefer Abigail's therapy to be on screen.

Jack: Awful, awful choice. Laura is totally incompetent (she already misdiagnosed Abby's PTSD as schizophrenia) and has zero experience with DID. It would have made a ton more sense for Kim to handle this, since she is a DID survivor herself.

Plus grandparents should not be treating their grandchildren. If DAYS ever handled mental illness stories properly, I would want to see Abby's therapy on screen, but considering how badly they botched JJ's therapy after his suicide attempt, I'll be relieved if it's totally off-screen so that I won't be irked by the unrealistic nature of it all.

Christine: Laura is the worst choice. No doctor should have a family member as their patient. Plus, in the past, Laura has completely misdiagnosed Abigail, and let her entire family think she was dead! How does anyone trust this woman anymore?

As Jack said above, if Abigail’s treatment was handled with any kind of realism, then that could be interesting, but as it is, it’s probably better that it all takes place off screen.

Was Claire purposefully not telling Tripp about Ciara’s history with sexual assault, or was she just that clueless that she wasn’t connecting it to Ciara’s current behavior?

Kierstin: Claire might purposefully not be telling Tripp, because that would be like her character.

Jack: I think she was clueless. I hate how they write Claire so unevenly, that she's only her original sweet personality when it suits them but most of the time they make her devious and manipulative.

Christine: Clueless. Maybe she just doesn’t understand how sexual assault can affect someone moving forward. I do wish they’d write Claire with a little more consistency. Her reactions and motivations are all over the place, but then again, maybe that’s just her personality.

Do you want to see Ben Weston back in Salem? Do you think he’s no longer a murderous psychopath?

Kierstin: I would like to see Ben back in Salem if his character has changed and if he's reformed. There could be a lot of potential with that storyline.

Jack: No, no, a thousand times no. It is absolutely ridiculous that a man who murdered three women for no reason whatsoever, tormented his girlfriend, and attempted to kill Will, gets released while Gabi is still in prison weeks after she should have been exonerated.

Plus the rushed nature of this is annoying. I'd much rather have seen Eve, JJ, Eric, and whoever Wendy the midwife's loved ones were appear at a hearing to try to convince a judge to keep him imprisoned than see him come back to Salem after one brief interview with Marlena. (I'd also rather Paige have been given the miracle drug too but that's beside the point.)

Christine: I don’t mind the actor, but the storyline is just so preposterous. I’m really not sure what purpose it serves to bring Ben back to Salem, and there are several other characters who are in Salem whom I wish would get more screen time.

What, if anything, disappointed you this week in Salem?

Kierstin: I'm disappointed that Gabi can't get out of prison. It's a very frustrating storyline. I'm hoping for Gabi's storyline to move on into something new.

Jack: Even though I like the Theresa/Eve/Brady story, I'd have preferred they not canonize Eve as a saint! She has done horrible things in the past too and they're writing it like she's some purely good person while Theresa is pure evil. Some nuance in this story would be nice.

In addition, Theresa calling Mateo to warn him about John and Paul was beyond the pale and the writers have done nothing to show Mateo actually being that much of a threat. He's so scary and powerful that the ISA couldn't stop him, but Chloe easily killed him? Come on.

I'm also torn about the Kayla story. I'm thrilled Steve and Kayla are getting more airtime, but it looks like we're headed towards breaking up the best couple in Salem over her keeping secrets that are out of character for her to keep.

And don't get me started on Tripp/Ciara/Claire. What could have been a moving, realistic story about Ciara dealing with having been sexually assaulted has turned into yet another guy unable to resist someone else's advances five seconds after the girl of his dreams dumping him, and it seems like her struggle over her rape is just a plot point to get us to the "real" story of Tripp's hooking up with Claire.

Gabi should not have been in prison this long, and this latest problem is utterly ridiculous. It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that she was not physically capable of sticking Dianne with a syringe when she only has the use of one arm! Why does DAYS always have to make prison stories so stereotypical and contrived? There's plenty that they could write about someone unjustly held in prison that doesn't involve some other inmate beating them up in front of corrupt or incompetent guards, and in this case it's worse because there is absolutely no reason or sense to Gabi's storyline.

Finally, Victor's saying his company couldn't be associated with sexual harassment lacked impact when five seconds later he was making misogynistic comments about how Chloe deserved to be held as a sex slave. Maybe his company shouldn't be associated with that attitude either.

Christine: Where to begin? I hate that Kayla and Steve are being saddled with a story involving Stefan. I know all of these actors worked together on General Hospital, but Stefan makes my skin crawl, and I’m already hating this story.

That Ciara’s sexual assault was never dealt with at all. She should have been in therapy and should still be, instead this is being used as a way to keep Tripp and Ciara apart and that’s pathetic.

Also, Gabi’s prison storyline continues to drag on and on and on, while Abigail gets to waltz off to Boston for therapy with her grandma!

What was your favorite quote, scene or storyline on this week’s Days of Our Lives?

Kierstin: My favorite scene this week was when Will, Sonny, Lucas and Ari were face painting and had cat faces.

Jack: Little Ari stole the show when she visited with Will, Lucas, and Sonny! Those scenes were so cute, and the family time we saw with Ari and the guys is the kind of thing I want to see on my soap instead of all this senseless violence.

Christine: Okay, since everyone else took the adorable Ari scenes, I’m going to choose Will and Paul. I enjoyed the way they shared how they felt about Will taking the chance on getting his memories back. That kind of openness, affection, and respect is why I love them as a couple.

Want to chat more about the happenings in Salem? Check out Jack Ori’s Days of Our Lives review here at TV Fanatic.

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Days of Our Lives packed a lot of story movement into three short days during the week of 6-4-18.

I'm not sure how I feel about some of these story developments, but I can't say the show didn't keep my interest!

The major story involved Ben being released from a sanitarium and returning to Salem in record time. I know a lot of fans are excited, but I'm not.

Ben was a serial killer who choked the life out of Paige and three other characters in a convoluted revenge plot against Chad, turned the crazy on and off whenever it suited him, and escaped from mental hospitals several times to create more chaos in Salem.

And now he's been released at lightning fast speed while Gabi continues to languish in prison, accused again of a crime she didn't commit while trying to defend herself from a random violent prisoner.

I really don't think we need this character to return yet again, especially since he quickly found an unconscious Ciara and carried her away to parts unknown.

Trying to Make Amends - Days of Our Lives

I'm really not sure what to make out of this story.

I don't like the idea of a serial killer being set free and left to his own devices in the town where he killed innocent women in order to get revenge on his rival for sleeping with his then-girlfriend.

For him to be so easily deemed fit to return to society and for Marlena to claim that his being not guilty by reason of insanity is equivalent to him having not committed any crimes doesn't sit well with me at all.

It sends the message that his victims' lives didn't matter and that all he needed to do to be redeemed was apologize for it.

Ben: I just want to make amends.
Chad: Amends? To whom? To Paige? She's dead. Serena? Dead. Wendy? She's gone too.
Permalink: Amends? To whom? To Paige? She's dead. Serena? Dead. Wendy? She's gone too.
Added: June 08, 2018

In addition, it would be better drama for this to be dragged out. If the writers wanted to bring Ben back, why not have a court hearing about his potential release and give some people -- like the family of his victims -- the opportunity to oppose it?

Viewers could then debate whether he should be released or not, and if he was victorious in court it would be an emotional punch in the gut to people like Eve, JJ, and Eric, who lost loved ones to his acts of senseless violence.

And the inevitable confrontations with Chad, Will, and others in town would be more meaningful if they came at the end of this story instead of at the beginning.

Ben's return was rushed, which cheapened the drama that followed.

Chad told Ben to leave town and he agreed. After being dropped off at the edge of Salem, he stewed over being called psychotic and being told he was hated, then ran across an unconscious Ciara, who he picked up and carried off.

The writers are clearly going for making Ben's motives ambiguous, and it worked. The five-day hiatus allowed viewers to debate whether Ben plans to help Ciara in order to redeem himself or make her his latest victim.

But considering he already killed three women and Ciara crashed her bike after struggling to tell Tripp that she was raped, the idea of her immediately falling into Ben's clutches is disturbing.

I hope Ben doesn't become the latest predator to kidnap a woman and use her for his own purposes. We just got Chloe out of an equally creepy situation and I don't want to see it repeated with Ciara.

There's also the possibility that Ben and Ciara will hook up romantically.

I've seen a number of fans excited about this idea, but I'm not one of them. For Ciara to reject Tripp because she was raped and then have no qualms about being with Ben would make no sense in addition to being a horrible story.

Ciara's difficulty dealing with her rape was at times a moving story, but all too often it denigrated into nonsense, especially as far as Tripp and Claire were concerned.

Unsurprisingly, Claire came home immediately after Ciara pushed Tripp away and ran off. Theo had dumped her and she wanted to hook up with Tripp now that she was single.

This seems to be how every love story in Salem goes nowadays. Two people who are supposedly meant for one another get into some sort of conflict, the guy immediately has a fling with someone else, and then regret, tears, and anger follow.

It's so played out on DAYS that viewers could start taking bets on who the interloper is going to be as soon as a couple gets together.

I hate this predictable, boring trope. It makes guys look weak and incapable of being faithful and women look like sex-crazed vixens who will take any opportunity to get a man in bed regardless of the potential consequences.

I would rather have seen Ciara's dilemma play out without this unnecessary plot. Ciara feels she is damaged goods who deserves only pity and shouldn't be with a decent guy like Tripp, while Tripp wants to support her and is willing to go as slowly as she wants.

Why isn't that enough drama?

In addition, the scenes between Tripp and Claire were so dragged out that I wondered why Tripp didn't just leave the apartment to get away from Claire and her continued advances towards him, since he claimed not to have any interest.

Claire was clearly supposed to be the villain -- a selfish, spoiled brat who will stop at nothing to get her way.

Except she wasn't.

As soon as Claire realized that Ciara's behavior towards Tripp was because she'd been raped and not because she wanted to run around town being a supermodel, she felt guilty about hooking up with him and tried to be a good friend to Ciara.

The writing for Claire is so inconsistent that it's impossible to invest in any story involving her. Sometimes she's a sweet, kind, miniature version of her mother and other times she sounds like the next Sami Brady.

If the writers are trying to make her a bad girl with a heart of gold, they've seriously missed the mark. It feels like they just shoehorn her into the villain role when the story calls for it and don't have a clear idea of what her personality is supposed to be.

It's annoying and makes her stories seem contrived. Her character is so all over the place that they might as well have had her be the one with Dissociative Identity Disorder instead of Abigail.

The best part of Ciara's storyline had nothing to do with Claire or Tripp at all. She went to the hospital looking for Marlena and found Kayla instead.

Kayla was able to counsel Ciara rape survivor to rape survivor. This was a terrific use of history, much better than when Jack's rape of Kayla was used for the ridiculous story of Paige insisting on knowing who raped Kayla in order to freak JJ out a few years ago.

Kayla was empathetic and encouraging, and she shared just enough of her own story to give Ciara hope. Their conversation was the highlight of the entire week of 6-4-18 for me.

Kayla: I'm just glad I could be helpful to someone.
Hope: Wanna talk about it?
Kayla: It's fine, really. It's just Steve.
Hope: How's he doing? I'm sorry I haven't been around more.
Kayla: It's all right. It's just, my husband hasn't got the memo that it's not a badge of honor to be the tough guy 24/7. I mean, you know, when I lost my hearing I let him help me. He even learned sign language. Yeah, it was hard. I felt like a burden at first. But you know something? It actually brought us closer together. I just wish he'd let me be that for him.
Permalink: It's all right. It's just, my husband hasn't got the memo that it's not a badge of honor to...
Added: June 08, 2018

Later, Kayla talked to Hope about how glad she was to be able to help Ciara, since Steve was rejecting her help. I was glad to finally get the reference to that time Kayla was deaf that I've been waiting for since this blindness story began!

As a long time Stayla fan, I couldn't understand why this important part of their history was not part of their current story. I thought that Kayla should have reminded Steve about it when he first brought up this idea that his blindness made him a burden.

Better late than never, though, and the mention was perfect, especially juxtaposed with Steve's scenes with Tripp.

Steve seemed to be functioning well despite his blindness until he knocked over a glass and couldn't see to pick up the broken pieces.

He didn't want to let Tripp help him, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who breathed a sigh of relief when he finally acknowledged that trying to pick up broken glass without being able to see was just going to lead to a bloody mess on the Pub floor.

I loved seeing Steve bond with Tripp while struggling with his own problems. He took time off from hating his blindness to listen to Tripp's problem with Ciara and try to encourage him.

These are the kinds of family scenes that I want to see more of instead of all the violence that seems to be at the forefront of the show nowadays.

I'm not sure how I feel about Kayla going behind Steve's back to get the technology from Stefan.

I love her dedication to her husband, but I can see where this is going and it bothers me.

Kayla agreed to get dirt on Kate for Stefan in exchange for getting Steve the technology to restore his vision.

She said nothing to Steve about this, and he made sure to tell anyone who would listen that he wants his family far away from Stefan and that he'd rather be blind for the rest of his life than accept help from him.

Can the writers be any more obvious that this is going to cause a major conflict and probably Steve and Kayla -- the one example of true love that still exists in Salem -- are going to end up on the outs when she is doing everything she is doing in order to help him!

Making a Deal With the Devil - Days of Our Lives

There has to be conflict in order to drive stories forward, but I prefer to see couples fighting an external force together, and I don't want to see Steve and Kayla fighting each other.

On the other hand, if this gives them more screen time, I'm all for it.

Plus, I would love it if Kayla found out about Kate taking over Vivian's scheme with Leo to ruin Sonny's life.

I hate this Sonny fake sexual harassment lawsuit storyline, and it got even sillier.

Sonny's first mistake was asking his dad to handle the case. Justin is not only too close to be objective but is the worst lawyer Salem has ever seen. His mishandling of Gabi's murder trial should have all of Salem running the other way, and he was no better in the way he dealt with Sonny's case.

Justin and Sonny met with Leo and his shady lawyer in the outdoor cafe instead of at someone's office. This was hardly the way to preserve anyone's confidentiality, and it got more ridiculous from there.

Sonny attempted to prove Leo was lying by pulling up his dating site profile, only to find he had deleted it. Somehow this backed up Leo's made up story that he met Sonny at work and Sonny pressured him for sex.

First of all, no competent lawyer would wait until the meeting to check whether evidence like that was accessible.

And if Leo did delete his dating profile, a proper lawyer would subpoena the dating site's records and Sonny's phone records to prove that the profile once existed and that messages were sent to it via Sonny's phone.

The issues of the texts Leo sent himself could also have easily been dealt with. Sonny claimed Leo sent the texts to himself while he was out of the office. It happened Sonny was meeting Will at the time.

So all Justin would have to do would get the date stamp on the messages and corroboration that Sonny was with someone else and not sending any texts.

DAYS relies on professionals not being able to do their jobs far too often.

Lawyers and cops are always stupid, incompetent, or exhibiting poor work ethics. It's not believable and it insults viewers' intelligence whenever idiocy is used as a plot device.

Brady and Theresa Have it Out - Days of Our Lives

Theresa continued to try to manipulate her way back into Brady's heart.

This story is a prime example of what happens when writers think that putting words in characters' mouths is enough without showing anything on-screen to back up what they are saying.

Theresa said she suffered terribly at Mateo's hands and that she had no choice but to betray Chloe.

I wish that had been the story we'd seen on-screen! Jen Lilley is a wonderful actress who can handle heavy material, and I would have rather seen Theresa dealing with severe PTSD after being treated as a sex slave than have her ordeal be a plot point that is glossed over.

But we didn't see that story. At all.

Theresa continually made the hard-to-believe claim that Mateo was so powerful no one could stop him and she had to do whatever it took to protect her family, even put John and Paul in harm's way.

Meanwhile, on screen we saw a cartoonish villain who in no way resembled a drug lord or anyone with any power, whose sole violent act was to impulsively shoot one of his minions. John and Paul broke into his compound easily and he was quickly disposed of when Chloe stabbed him in the back.

His goons claimed he was so powerful that Chloe and the guys would not survive her attack on Mateo, then in the next scene the good guys were all safe and sound and on their way home.

This was hardly someone Theresa had to be afraid of. Xander, the guy who saved her, was far more scary and dangerous than Mateo, by the looks of it!

If Theresa were actually shown as having been abused and suffering from PTSD, Brady would have come off as a jerk. But as it was, he was in the right and finally using his brain instead of what was between his legs when he threw Theresa out of his house.

Afterward, Brady continued acting like an adult for once, confronting Victor and telling him he wasn't going to be controlled by him any longer. He rejected the offer to become CEO of Titan again and made arrangements to leave with Tate.

There are some problems with this. For one thing, a motel room isn't an ideal place to raise a child, and Brady's move is impulsive, especially considering he has no long-term plan for financial independence.

And Maggie's reaction to learning Victor didn't care whether Chloe was stuck in Mexico forever was way over the top.

Maggie's worship of Eve is ridiculous, especially considering their history, and she's acting shocked that Victor isn't Tom Horton when she knew exactly what she was getting into when she married him.

This conflict should have ended back in 2013 after Maggie forgave Victor for unmasking Kristen's rape of Eric during Brady's wedding to her. While it makes sense that she would be upset about the mother of her grandchild being kidnapped and tormented, for this to be a dealbreaker now makes none.

Meanwhile, Theresa ran into JJ, who acted like she was his long-lost best friend.

It seems more and more like JJ never came to terms with Paige's death and projects his feelings about her onto every woman he sees, because Theresa is the latest in a long line of women who don't deserve that kind of reaction from him.

Theresa herself admitted that she had been terrible to JJ in the past and was confused by his sudden adoration. I think she was speaking for the viewers there!

It's clear that she's taking advantage of JJ's kindness. Even though she told him she's interested in Brady, not him, she isn't above doing anything she can to manipulate him into helping her get Brady away from Eve.

JJ should have realized Theresa was not worth his time when she asked him to tell Brady about Eve's terrible treatment of him years ago. And I have no doubt that if she thinks it will help, she'll pretend to Brady that she and JJ are together now.

She's a step above the liar that raped JJ and is now trying to get him to take her back, but that's not saying much.

So what did you think, Days of Our Lives fanatics? Are you excited or disgusted by Ben's return? Was anyone surprised that Tripp hooked up with Claire, even if he did stop short of sex? Do you want more Steve and Kayla on our screens?

Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for the Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

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Kayla made a deal with the devil to help Steve, Theresa and Brady continued their feud, Ben returned to Salem, and Ciara finally confided in Tripp this week in Salem.

Our TV Fanatics Jack Ori and Christine Orlando are joined by Silvananoir1 from MyHourglass a Days of Our Lives fan forum to debate Kayla working with Stefan, if Theresa and Brady belong together, and Ciara and Tripp’s future on Days of Our Lives.

Do you blame Kayla for working with Stefan and going behind Steve’s back to get his sight back?

Silvananoir1: No. Kayla is desperate to help Steve. She's not really thinking about the consequences. I think part of her blames herself for not curing him. Also I think she's ashamed.

She knows the problem about going to Stefan (1. a Dimera 2. What he did to Abigail). Steve would forgive her but I think the thought of restoring his sight is ironically blinding her.

Jack: I'm so conflicted about this. I love Kayla being willing to do ANYTHING to help Steve, but I hate that she's doing it behind his back.

This is the one couple in Salem that still exemplifies true love and I want to see them fighting together for Steve, not fighting with each other because Kayla secretly went against Steve's wishes. And I can't stand Stefan, so there's that.

Christine: I despise Stefan, he’s just slimy, but I understand where Kayla’s coming from. She sees this as the only option to get Steve’s sight back, and she knows he will adamantly try to stop her once she tells him.

It’s a clear case of it being easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. I know there will be consequences, but if her husband can see, she’ll live with them.

Are you rooting for Theresa and Brady to get back together?

Silvananoir1: Not really. I enjoy Brady and Eve. I never really liked Thrady too much. I can even forgive Theresa her actions in Mexico. I think what Brady is really mad at is her endangering John and Paul.

Brady was right, time moved on. He moved on. He loves her but he's no longer in love with her. Putting them back together just rings false. The initially chemistry has, for me at least, disappeared.

Jack: Not the way Theresa is being written now. She appears to have turned back into the selfish, manipulative woman that should have been sent back to LA to live with her parents a long time ago.

Christine: I was never a huge fan of Theresa or Brady’s. She’s too needy, and he’s too dumb. They worked mostly because of Tate. I never expected to enjoy Brady and Eve, but I do think they’re good together.

Eve offers Brady a more mature relationship which I think he needs. But in the end, I’m not really that invested in either couple, so I’m not sure I care who ends up with whom.

Hope encouraged JJ to give Lani a second chance. Which would you prefer, Lani and JJ to reunite or Sami being pregnant with Rafe’s child?

Silvananoir1: Can we not give Sami another kid. I don't think I could take it. JJ and Lani would be fine with me. I don't love them but it's better than another baby daddy drama with Sami.

Jack: I don't like either of those ideas, but JJ needs a restraining order against Lani and her constant attempts to force him into a relationship he doesn't want so I guess I'll go with Sami being pregnant even though it would be an awful story. At least that would keep the horrible Hope/Rafe couple apart.

Christine: I wanted to scream when Hope tried to encourage JJ to give Lani another chance. Rafe lying to Hope was horrible, but it doesn’t quite compare to Lani making JJ believe her unborn child was his!

I hate the idea of Sami having yet another kid, but if it meant JJ never having to deal with Lani again, and Hope and Rafe broken up permanently, then that’s enough up side for me to go with it.

Is Ben truly reformed? Does he pose a danger to anyone is Salem?

Silvananoir1: There's no way to tell. The problem with Ben is that it's going to take time. However, we've forgiven other characters for much worse actions.

Sami may not have killed anyone but we can't forget her demons. And we have forgiven EJ a lot. In the short term people in Salem are going to be very hostile. But if the character sticks around I can see it being fine in a year or two.

Jack: I don't think he is. I think he's manipulative and in addition, Chad going off on him will be a good excuse to return to violent behavior. I'm worried about Ciara falling into his clutches so easily.

Christine: Anything is possible in Salem. I can’t imagine a former serial killer being suddenly cured and allowed to walk around free, but didn’t Andre commit horrible acts and get to come back to Salem? Only time will tell what’s really going on with Ben.

Ciara finally told Tripp about her sexual assault. Do you think these two have a future as a romantic couple?

Silvananoir1: Right now, no. It's not the sleeping with Claire that's the issue, it's the fact that he did it right after they broke up. That's the issue that Ciara and I frankly both have a problem with.

Confiding in Tripp is the right thing to do and would have been better before they tried intimacy. Right now the betrayal is way to fresh. But he was a good influence on her. I'd like to see them revisited later on.

Jack: I hope so, but Ciara flying off the handle so easily and using Claire as an excuse for continuing to insist Tripp doesn't want her because of the rape isn't a good sign.

Christine: Tripp didn’t actually sleep with Claire, as he put the brakes on things before it went that far. I love the idea of Bo and Hope’s daughter and Steve’s son being a sort of legacy couple, but they’ve got a long road to go before they get there. I really hope that the show takes the time to build this couple up in a responsible, realistic way.

Couples tend to jump into bed so fast that there’s no anticipation for the viewer. It would be nice to see the opposite of that for Tripp and Ciara.

What, if anything, disappointed you this week in Salem?

Silvananoir1: I truly hated the fact that Gabi is in trouble again. I hate this story line and I want it over. Free Gabi already.

Jack: Ben's lightning fast release while Gabi is still in jail for crimes she didn't commit. Hope encouraging JJ to give rapist Lani a second chance, besides the fact that that's a terrible idea, did Hope like it when everyone in town pushed her to forgive Rafe? No. So why is she doing the same thing to JJ?

JJ's random excitement over seeing Theresa. And Maggie's over-the-top reaction to learning about Victor's involvement in covering up Chloe's plight.

Christine: Why the heck is Gabi still in jail? That story is ridiculous.

Brady and Theresa both lacking the emotional maturity to put their son above their own needs and petty anger.

Hope pushing JJ to give Lani another chance because she gave Rafe another chance. Two wrongs don’t make a right!

Finally, Sonny and Justin's ineptitude in dealing with this sexual harassment lawsuit was almost unwatchable.

What was your favorite quote, scene or storyline on this week’s Days of Our Lives?

Silvananoir1: I enjoyed them finally dealing with Ciara's rape. They glossed over a lot of issues when they changed actresses. It's completely logical that she would have major problems with intimacy. And the fallout, the guilt that she had with Tripp really helped me connect with her. I hope RC keeps moving forward and gets to helping her start to heal.

Jack: I loved Kayla counseling Ciara and her scene with Hope. Finally we got the reference to her past deafness that should have been part of this story all along! I also enjoyed Steve's scenes with Tripp.

Christine: Steve’s scenes with Tripp were some of the best of the week. These two actors have wonderful chemistry. Also, Kayla counseling Ciara and talking about her own past. This is what soap storylines should be!

Want to chat more about the happenings in Salem? Check out Jack Ori’s Days of Our Lives review here at TV Fanatic.

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I had to laugh when Ciara asked Ben why he bothered going back to Salem.

Salem's claim to fame seems to be that everyone is in competition to see who can be the most judgmental about things that are none of their business.

During Days of Our Lives during the week of 6-11-18, there was more than enough judgmental obnoxiousness to go around.

Jennifer dropped in uninvited on JJ and criticized his choice of roommate, Eve and Theresa had choice things to say about one another, and Julie went on her usual rant about the Hernandezes after reading about Gabi's dilemma.

I almost felt sorry for a couple characters I wish would leave and not come back! That's how bad the judgmentalism was.

Judgmental Jennifer Returns - Days of Our Lives

I'm thrilled that JJ finally has a storyline, and doubly thrilled that his mother remembered she has a son with mental health issues, but I could do without the way it's playing out.

Jennifer seemed to think that it was still 2013, which was when she had every right to intervene in Theresa's relationship with her then-teenage son.

Back then, JJ was a troubled 17-year-old who was using marijuana to help him cope with his dad's death and Theresa was a twenty-something who was encouraging his bad behavior, and Jen wanted to stop JJ from spiraling out of control.

But that was then. JJ is now an adult, and despite his recent depression, he is capable of making his own decisions.

Plus, Jennifer's treatment of him and Theresa was nothing but obnoxious, and it put Eric in the middle between his cousin and his girlfriend's son.

That was not cool at all, and I was disappointed that JJ gave in to Jen's manipulations and began explaining. When she commented he would have more privacy if Theresa wasn't in his bathroom, I wanted so badly for him to respond that he'd have more privacy if Jen wasn't on his couch!

I've long been fascinated with the way Jennifer treats JJ as opposed to how she treats Abigail, and I'd love to see a story about JJ confronting that as an adult. If he had a proper therapist instead of his mom's boyfriend, that would be great, dramatic material to dive into during therapy scenes.

Unfortunately, JJ's therapy is mostly off-screen and what has been on-screen has been a complete joke. And seeing Jen go off on him is pointless if his only reaction is going to be to apologize for being an adult with separate opinions from his mother about how to live his life.

Brady: Theresa, get up. This is pathetic. You're offering sex to get what you want.
Theresa: I'm offering sex to get what YOU want.
Brady: How desperate are you?
Permalink: How desperate are you?
Added: June 15, 2018

I'm enjoying JJ's scenes with Theresa more than I am the rest of her return.

Theresa is singularly focused on one thing and one thing alone: getting Brady back.

Instead of any sort of serious story around her PTSD from being treated as a sex slave for a year and a half, Theresa is engaging in one manipulation after another to try to get her way with her ex.

She and Eve are judging each other every chance they get, and Theresa seems to be the only one that remembers that Eve has a checkered past.

Meanwhile, Theresa plotted with Victor to get control of Bella Magazine and get Brady to agree to move back into the mansion in exchange for her giving it to him. When that didn't work, she came up with Plan B: offer the magazine in exchange for Brady sleeping with her.

This plan was ridiculous and did nothing but make Theresa look desperate and stupid.

Worse still, when Brady showed up to confront her about her lack of qualifications to run a magazine, she asked JJ to leave his own apartment.

And JJ did!

I don't know which is worse.

Theresa had the audacity to ask JJ to do that for her after he's gone out of his way to give her a place to stay, tried to steer her away from her bad ideas about how to get Brady back, and put up with his mom's judgments about him living with her.

But JJ should have had the self-respect to not let her get away with that.

Instead, he went to the Pub where he ran into Lani.

Ugh. I was enjoying his Lani-free scenes. His friendship with Theresa is far more entertaining than his rapist whining about how she misses him and wants to try again.

I hope that nobody gets ideas about blaming JJ for Lani's premature labor. It's definitely not his fault that she insisted on asking him yet again for another chance and then didn't like his answer.

The best part of this nonsense was JJ pointing out to Lani that Theresa couldn't hurt him worse than Lani already had. Too bad he followed that up with a speech about how the main reason he doesn't want to try again is that it would hurt to see Eli raise the baby instead of JJ.

First of all, if JJ and Lani were at all a viable couple, they would work out what his relationship with the baby would be. That's part of what it means to date someone who has a child with someone else.

More importantly, the baby lie wasn't Lani's only sin. It was the last in a long line of manipulative things she did to hold onto JJ and try to force him to love her.

This is yet another reason JJ needs a real therapist instead of his mom's boyfriend. He needs help grappling with the question of why he is attracted to a woman like Lani who mistreats him constantly.

It most likely goes back to never having had any closure about Paige's death -- more dramatic gold that is being missed by the current writing team.

This drama was overshadowed by the biggest story of the week of 6-11-18: Ciara's disappearance, thanks to Ben Weston rescuing her after she wiped out on her bike.

Ben: I know that look. The fear in your eyes... I've seen it before.
Ciara: Yeah, I bet you have.
Ben: Look at me, Ciara. I'm not that man anymore.
Ciara: Why? Because one piece of paper says you're cured?
Permalink: Why? Because one piece of paper says you're cured?
Added: June 15, 2018

I'm still conflicted about this story.

The idea of Ben being so easily redeemed irks me, and I loved Ciara's doubt that he was really reformed. And it seems like DAYS is taking this in the direction of Ciara falling hard for Ben despite her mother's opinion.

This potential relationship is a hard NO for me.

Ben killed three women for no real reason and Ciara is dealing with the aftereffects of having been raped.

This is an awful idea for a pairing, and that's really saying something, considering how many terrible couples DAYS seems to be pushing on viewers nowadays.

The set-up at the cabin seemed like something out of Stephen King's Misery, and I definitely could have lived without half an episode's worth of flashbacks of Ben tormenting Abigail.

Marci Miller brought a fresh, interesting perspective to those scenes, which were originally filmed with Kate Mansi. But I was disgusted by this story the first time and had no desire to see it again.

There had to be a better way to show Ben struggling with his past than devoting a ton of time to flashbacks that nobody wanted to see. That time could have been used to develop stories in the present.

The scenes aired on June 13, which happened to be the anniversary of Stephen Nichols joining the cast of DAYS for the first time back in 1985. I was disappointed that instead of any Steve and Kayla scenes whatsoever, that hour was focused mainly on Ben.

More interesting was the various reactions as Hope, Tripp, and Claire realized Ciara was actually missing.

I was especially curious about Hope's reaction. Tripp hooking up with Claire the second Ciara dumped him is somewhat similar to what Rafe did.

There's a big difference, though. Rafe lied and kept the secret for months. With Tripp, Claire, and Ciara, it was out in the open within seconds. Besides, they didn't actually go through with having sex, for whatever that's worth.

Anyway, as a viewer, I wasn't sure what to think about Hope's reaction. On the one hand, if she forgives Tripp easily, it makes her look hypocritical.

But I hate the idea of Hope and Rafe as a couple and I don't like that Ciara's disappearance seems to be drawing them closer to one another again.

Meanwhile, Julie sat around being so judgmental of both Rafe and Gabi that she made Jennifer's attitude towards Theresa look like nothing.

I agree with Rafe about one thing: her problem with his treatment of Hope has nothing to do with Gabi, who happens to be an innocent person who has been railroaded.

It's ridiculous that Gabi is still in prison -- what happened to those security tapes that should instantly clear her? And Julie's continued vindictiveness towards her is annoying.

I have to question Sonny's choice to not tell Ari the truth about where her mother is.

I already thought that was a bad idea. But if Gabi's latest problem has made the news, undoubtedly some other child at Ari's pre-school or daycare will overhear their parents talking about it and tease Ari about her mom being in jail.

Finding out that way will be twice as painful than her daddies explaining the situation to her and encouraging her to come to them if anyone bothers her about it.

Brady: Theresa, you are in no way qualified to run a magazine. You know that and I know that.
Theresa: And Eve is? She's a lounge singer.
Permalink: And Eve is? She's a lounge singer.
Added: June 15, 2018

Eve also took the opportunity to be judgmental when she learned about this whole mess.

Claire tearfully confessed her part in it after Eve fretted that Ciara hadn't shown up, and Eve proceeded to judge Claire for having sex in the living room instead of the bedroom and Tripp for being a guy.

As much as I hated and would like to forget the Eve/JJ hookup story, the fact remains that Eve's part in that, plus the other things she did to interfere with Paige's relationship with JJ, is far worse than Claire's questionable choices with Tripp.

And Eve's declaration that Brady is the only man she doesn't think is a dog was ridiculous. Brady is an eternal 14-year-old who thinks every woman he meets is the love of his life!

Plus, her counter-plan to get rid of Theresa's control over Bella Magazine involved an alliance with Stefan Dimera, who encouraged Abigail's mental illness so he could get laid and who will surely double cross Eve the first chance he gets.

Eve's instincts need a little work. Perhaps a ghostly visit from Paige is in order to get her head on right.

Elsewhere, Will's decision to take the memory-inducing shot would have been more dramatic if it hadn't been so dragged out.

Paul fretted over and over about the possibility of WIll leaving him once he remembered who he was, but at least he was supportive.

Once Will got to the hospital, viewers were treated to a series of tedious scenes where Marlena continually tried to talk Will out of taking the shot.

These scenes went in circles, with her issuing warnings and Will refusing to listen.

Even Paul suggesting they should respect Will's wishes didn't seem to sway Marlena, and his threat to get a different doctor who might actually do the job resulted in Marlena asking him again to reconsider.

I know they wanted to have the actual shot be the last scene, but this was so repetitive I wanted to jump into the TV and push Marlena out of the way so Will could get his shot!

And after all that, he wasn't seen again for the rest of the week, so there wasn't even any payoff for sitting through these scenes.

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Kayla went ahead with her mission to get Kate, even lying to Marlena about what she was doing.

This is so out of character for Kayla and I'm really worried it's going to blow up in her face and ruin things with her and Steve -- a legacy couple that should be fighting his blindness together, not separately.

But when Kayla came around the corner and saw Kate warning shady lawyer Ted not to hang around her in public, I cheered. If Kayla can help get rid of this idiotic Leo storyline, something good will come out of the misuse of her character.

It's your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics! Which storylines did you love or hate? Which MIA character would you like to see more of? Do you ship Ciara/Ben, or does the idea disgust you?

Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for our Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

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Theresa tried to use sex to win back Brady, Ben holed up in a cabin with Ciara, and Victor sent Xander packing, but not before he took some incriminating evidence with him.

Our TV Fanatics Jack Ori and Christine Orlando are joined by WendyLou from MyHourglass a Days of Our Lives fan forum to debate Theresa’s schemes, JJ’s living arrangements, Kayla’s plan to help Steve, and the future of Lani’s baby on Days of Our Lives.

Which version of Theresa do you prefer? The selfless woman who left to protect her family, or the person willing to use sex to win Brady back?

WendyLou: I prefer her somewhere in the middle. I'd like her to be spunky and fun but not nasty and sneaky. She was one of my favorite characters when she left and I was excited for her return. However, I don't like this desperate, conniving version of her.

I'm disappointed to see the character being trashed right now. I get that she loves Brady and wants him and her family back but I hate to see her begging him and obsessing over him. I'd like to see her get her self-esteem back and decide that she deserves someone she doesn't have to chase.

As much as I looked forward to a Thrady reunion, she needs to move on.

Jack: I think Theresa's exit story was ridiculous, but I preferred her as a good girl with an edge. The manipulative Theresa is annoying, immature, and in no way resembles anyone who could be Shane and Kim's daughter.

Christine: I hated Theresa’s exit story but I liked how she’d grown as a person to get to that point. Now she’s desperate, needy, manipulative. I want to see her working on her fashion career and being a great mother to her son. She can have an edge, but right now Theresa Donovan is more pathetic than edgy, and that’s really sad.

Theresa Makes Her Play - Days of Our Lives

Did JJ make a mistake by letting Theresa stay at his place?

WendyLou: No, not at all. Theresa and JJ have been fun to watch together as friends. I also think, as much as everyone in Salem is saying the opposite, it might even be a good thing for JJ to have her there. They've been having some fun talks and she's made him laugh a bit. Who else has made him smile lately?

Jack: Not necessarily, but I think he needs to start setting boundaries, like not allowing her to tell him to leave his own apartment! The fact that they were discussing their former drug-fueled relationship isn't exactly a good sign either, though even though JJ still has some unaddressed issues, he seems to have given that up for good.

But I'm worried that Theresa could try to use him to make Brady jealous, which won't be good either.

Christine: I’m enjoying Theresa and JJ. They both need a real friend, and this is the most fun I’ve seen JJ have in a long while. Despite Jennifer freaking out, I think Theresa staying with JJ might be good for them both, and either way, it’s definitely entertaining.

Victor and Maggie both shut Xander out when he asked for the chance to run Titan. Were they right to do so?

WendyLou: Well, he is a loose cannon to put it mildly but it's hard to see how he could do much worse than Sonny or Brady right now. I kind of think a lot of Xander's bad behavior comes from his craving to be accepted by Victor and the rest of the family. It might have been the thing that set him on the right track.

Jack: Xander is not at all trustworthy and does not need to have any power at Titan. Victor was right. But Maggie and her tantrum about Victor not telling her about Theresa being in Mexico or Chloe being in danger were over the top.

Christine: First off, didn’t Maggie offer Deimos a second chance even after he poisoned her and caused her paralysis? Being this angry at Xander seems a little hypocritical.

Also, it’s not like Victor was a choir boy when he was running Titan. Brady and Sonny have proven to be screw ups and Philip doesn’t appear to be coming back. I think Xander deserves a chance.

If you were in Kayla’s place, would you turn over Kate’s medical records to Stefan to get Steve his sight back?

WendyLou: I don't think so, no. I know she loves Steve and wants to help but I just think there has to be another way besides doing something completely unethical and possibly career-ending.

Of course, Kate wouldn't hesitate to do this to anyone else for her own benefit but there's no need to see one of the few upstanding, ethical characters on the show sink to such tactics. I want her to find another way.

Jack: No. While Steve getting his sight back would be good news, it's not such an emergency that it's worth Kayla risking her medical license (or her self-esteem). If they waited a while, the Dimera patent would expire and someone else would manufacture the technology. But that would be boring so...

Christine: No! I can’t believe that Kayla is seriously considering this. Digging up some dirt on Kate is one thing but using her medical and psychiatric history is illegal, unethical and just plain wrong! It’s not as though Steve is dying. There has to be another way for Kayla to help him.

Do you think Lani is going to lose the baby? Will it upset you if she does?

WendyLou: No I don't think Lani will lose the baby. I honestly don't care about her story or her character so no, cruel as it is, it wouldn't upset me to see a fictional baby lost. I guess I might feel a little bad for Eli, Abe and Valerie, but Lani can go kick rocks, preferably somewhere outside Salem.

Jack: Losing a baby is always sad. But what upsets me more is that I think that without Eli's baby to remind him that Lani is a liar who didn't care about him at all, JJ might take her back.

Christine: I’m with Jack. Watching her lose the baby would be sad, but the only reason I care about Lani’s baby is that it seems to be the one thing keeping JJ away from her!

What, if anything, disappointed you this week in Salem?

WendyLou: Eve being sainted while Theresa is the town pariah again for making a very stupid decision after sacrificing herself for a year and half. Brady (and most of the town) were so quick to completely vilify her for being scared of El Fideo. I'd like to know what any of them would have done in her shoes?

Jack: JJ giving Lani the time of day. Also, too many judgmental people looking down their noses when they don't have squeaky clean backgrounds themselves. Jennifer was obnoxious and JJ should have told her to go away and come back when she could be civil to his roommate.

Eve judged Claire for her makeout session with Tripp when she has done far worse (like sleeping with her daughter's boyfriend).

Tripp joined the judgmental club by going on and on about how horrible it was that Chase was dealt with legally instead of by getting beaten up by Ciara and ignoring his own checkered past (anyone remember him holding Kayla hostage after nearly killing her patients?)

In addition, Eli whined about having to look for Ciara instead of working on other cases while he was standing around doing nothing, and the idea of Ciara and Ben possibly hooking up makes me sick.

Christine: Kate’s absolutely hideous outfits! JJ having anything to do with Lani, and Jennifer acting like JJ is an irresponsible teenager instead of a grown man, and Victor and Maggie shutting Xander out.

But worst of all was when Abe tried to strong arm Hope into forgiving Rafe. The only upside was that Hope stood up for herself during that conversation.

What was your favorite quote, scene or storyline on this week’s Days of Our Lives?

WendyLou: I liked Theresa and JJ's conversation where she told him she could have won Brady over if she'd only been able to get him back into bed. I thought it was cute when he told her she had a lot of confidence in her skills in that area. Just some funny interactions for once.

And as much as Lani bores me, her conversations with Valerie and Claire were pretty nice.

Jack: I loved Ciara pointing out how ridiculous Ben being proclaimed cured was in this Days of Our Lives quote...

Ben: I know that look. The fear in your eyes... I've seen it before.
Ciara: Yeah, I bet you have.
Ben: Look at me, Ciara. I'm not that man anymore.
Ciara: Why? Because one piece of paper says you're cured?
Permalink: Why? Because one piece of paper says you're cured?
Added: June 15, 2018

I also liked JJ pointing out to Lani that her suggesting Theresa could hurt him was ridiculous, considering how she treated him.

Christine: Theresa and JJ’s conversations were the highlight of the week!

Want to chat more about the happenings in Salem? Check out Jack Ori’s Days of Our Lives review here at TV Fanati

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I have mixed feelings about the death of Lani's baby.

The loss of a child is one of the saddest soap stories there is, and many of the scenes surrounding the premature birth and death of this child on Days of Our Lives during the week of 6-18-18 were heartbreaking.

At the same time, it felt like a ploy to get viewers to be sympathetic towards Lani and root for her and JJ to get back together when the show has not done anything to make her or this relationship rootable.

Was I the only one who felt like I'd be even more invested if it was a character I cared about?

The Hortons Support Eli - Days of Our Lives

When Lani just happened to go into labor five seconds after asking JJ to get back together, I was suspicious.

DAYS isn't often subtle about what it is planning, especially when it comes to relationship drama. JJ had just said that the reason he couldn't reconcile with Lani is that he didn't want to watch her raise a baby with another man that he once thought was his.

So it was clear to me that the trajectory of this story was going to be pregnancy, miscarriage, reconciliation in the throes of grief. And that was not something I wanted to see.

The lead-up to the death of the baby was extraordinarily well done despite how obvious it was where this was going.

One by one, the Hortons arrived to support Eli and offer congratulations, expecting that he would soon be the father of a baby that would need to spend time in the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit but would be alive.

Julie did her usual busybody act, demanding to know whether Eli and Lani were going to live together once the baby was born, and for some inexplicable reason, Abe suddenly became paranoid that Eli was going to abandon Lani and the baby once it was no longer inside of her.

I thought it was bizarre that Jennifer and her whole lunch party felt a need to join JJ at the hospital. Lani is no longer dating JJ, and while Eli is a Horton, he rarely interacts with anyone other than Valerie, Abe, or Julie.

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Surprisingly, Jennifer not only understood that he might not want everyone there but also gave JJ the space to make his own decision about whether or not he would leave because of Eli's clear jealousy of the role he was playing in taking care of things.

Is this the same woman who threw a giant-sized tantrum about her adult son daring to let a woman share his apartment that she didn't particularly like?

I prefer the sane version of Jennifer, but could the writers please pick one instead of bouncing her back and forth between reasonable and overbearing depending on the story?

Anyway, for once a medical storyline was treated realistically, other than Valerie assisting in her daughter-in-law's emergency surgery. And when Kayla came out to deliver the sad news that the baby didn't make it, it broke my heart.

No one has even told Lani yet. She doesn't even know that our baby's gone.
Eli
Permalink: No one has even told Lani yet. She doesn't even know that our baby's gone.
Added: June 22, 2018

Afterward, JJ blamed himself for Lani's premature labor and the baby's subsequent death, while her immediate family struggled with the question of who should tell her that her baby was gone.

I knew JJ would find a way to make himself responsible.

That's what JJ does, and he hasn't had any proper therapy, so he is still engaging in the same negative thought patterns that drove him towards suicide after he shot Theo.

It was still upsetting to hear him castigate himself yet again for something that was not his fault, and I was surprised by Theresa's empathy for him.

So far, Theresa has mainly been the selfish, scheming Theresa of 2013, with very few signs that the redeemed Theresa who left Salem in 2016 still exists.

This feels like more manipulation on the part of the writers. Theresa is kind and sweet when around JJ and evil when she's around Brady -- I wonder who we're supposed to root for her to be with here?

That issue is overshadowed by the fact that DAYS still has done nothing to suggest that JJ and Lani were ever anything but a woman taking advantage of a too-drunk-to-consent man and then manipulating her way into a relationship.

While Lani was unconscious during her surgery, viewers were treated to endless fantasies of her and JJ having a happy life together and Eli being viewed as a villain by his overly attentive grandma Julie. Like that would ever happen!

That did little to convince me that she was in love with JJ, though it did show she was delusional and still wished she could find the right trick to manipulate him into taking her back.

And then JJ went on and on about how he didn't know how Lani was going to survive knowing she lost her baby, and his sympathy was clearly supposed to suggest he was still in love with her.

The problem is, it just showed that JJ was too good for her and that the writers stole a story meant for JJ and Paige and gave it to Lani several years after killing Paige off for no reason.

Meanwhile, Eli and Lani were both devastated over the baby's death, but up to this point there have been very few scenes of them together at all, and Eli told Julie that Lani had kept him at arm's length and wouldn't even discuss custody or financial arrangements with him.

We didn't see many scenes of him trying and her rebuffing him, either.

This, too, detracted from the power of these scenes because instead of a story about Eli looking forward to fatherhood and Lani trying to cut him out, other than one token scene a while ago, we got no story at all and were just told about it.

Meanwhile, Ciara's disappearance seems to be a vehicle to get the only couple who is less popular than JJ and Lani back together.

This Ben/Ciara story is making less and less sense every time it airs. Ciara distrusts Ben and thinks he is eventually going to kill her, yet she refused to let her family know she was alive until he insisted on it and then told Hope that she didn't want to come home and didn't want her to know where she was.

I know Ciara is feeling low because of the after-effects of her rape, but this story went from an interesting, somewhat realistic story about a young woman dealing with sexual assault to absolute nonsense.

I have to wonder if Ciara suffered some sort of brain injury in her accident because her behavior makes no sense whatsoever.

I understand her feeling like she doesn't want to face Tripp and Claire, but there's no reason for her to think that her mom -- who has been super supportive of her struggle -- doesn't care about her or her fate.

And even if she did think that, why would she rather be holed up in the middle of nowhere with a stranger that she thinks may be trying to kill her?

Ciara's behavior makes her look both erratic and selfish and is a rehash of JJ running away to live in the park several years ago, minus character motivations that make any sense.

Her scenes with Ben are reminiscent of Criminal Minds, if not Stephen King's Misery, and her apparent attraction to Ben makes Melissa Horton's obsession with gang member Pete Jannings in the 1980s look like a match made in heaven!

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But I guess it doesn't have to make sense since Ciara's story is beside the point and the real purpose is to get Hope and Rafe back together.

The aftermath of Hope and Rafe's break-up has made as little sense as their relationship. Hope randomly chose to cancel the annulment of her marriage even though she wasn't sure she wanted to be with Rafe. Staying married to someone while she decides whether she wants even to date him seems logical to her.

Anyway, once Ciara disappeared, there were a ton of scenes of Rafe comforting, supporting, and encouraging Hope, and they held hands and hugged several times.

Granted, Rafe telling Hope she's the strongest woman he knows and admitting he doesn't have the right to tell her what to do is far less obnoxious than how he treated her when they were actually dating, but that doesn't make this couple anything approaching rootable!

There's still zero chemistry, and a ton of obnoxious scenes, plus the whole thing is still a giant smear campaign against the characters of Aiden and his son, who were both twisted all out of shape and turned into villains just to clear the way for Rafe and Hope to couple up.

Maggie: Go give Mommy a hug.
Ari: No, Mommy. I hate you.
Permalink: No, Mommy. I hate you.
Added: June 22, 2018

I was relieved that Gabi is finally home from prison, though her story was wrapped up neatly through dialogue and was hard to believe even for this show.

Apparently, another inmate hated Dianne so much that she disabled the security cameras when she found out that Dianne had choked Gabi to the point that she passed out, just to frame her for her own murder of Dianne. Then the woman was so proud of what she'd done that she told on herself and was forced to confess.

This violent inmate had the forethought to plan out a crime of opportunity, complete with hacking into technology to frame Gabi but not to keep her mouth shut to get away with it.

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Anyway, Gabi's homecoming resulted in little Ari telling her that she hated her and refusing to stay in the room, after which Gabi decided the thing to do was go storm off to confront Stefan after blaming Abby for her rape.

So all this sympathy was built up for poor victim Gabi for what? So that she can become completely unlikeable the second, she finally comes home and commits atrocities of her own that will likely land her right back in jail?

It's a shame because a story about Ari dealing with her mom having been falsely imprisoned could have been interesting, but clearly, Gabi's plight was nothing more than a plot point to help transition her into an evil character.

Meanwhile, far more fans want Gabi with JJ than want to see him reunite with his rapist, yet the show kept these two apart in favor of endless scenes of Gabi and Chad while working on finding a reason for JJ to take Lani back.

Kate Manipulates Chad - Days of Our Lives

One of the biggest disappointments was Chad choosing to listen to Kate and keep it secret that she's behind Leo's lies about Sonny.

I don't understand what the writers' obsession is with best friends betraying one another, but I don't like it.

Chad has long been judged for his Dimera name even though he's the one Dimera that plays by the rules, so seeing him decide he needs to be just like Stefano is frustrating.

Chad: Maybe I should have done more. Maybe I should have got rid of him [Ben] altogether. That's what my father would have done.
Sonny: You're not your father. And thank God for that.
Permalink: You're not your father. And thank God for that.
Added: June 22, 2018

Besides, it seems like a set-up for Chad and Gabi to be the new evil couple in town, and I don't want to see that.

It's bad enough that Steve and Kayla are getting destroyed by this nonsense with Kayla doing Stefan's bidding and not telling Steve about it without Chad and Abigail again being sacrificed for the ridiculous pairing of Chad and Gabi.

And to complete the trifecta of character-ruining moments, Theresa filed for full custody of Tate just to get revenge on Brady and Eve.

Theresa's re-entry story should have fixed her awful exit, not ruined her character further.

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She supposedly left to protect Brady and Tate, but now she is more than willing to use Tate as a pawn to get Brady to dump Eve.

To be fair, Brady is doing the same thing by trying to keep Tate from Theresa, and since the poor kid seems to spend all his time being babysat by other relatives, it hardly matters who has custody.

But still, this makes Theresa look even worse than before. How can this be the same woman who was so supportive of JJ earlier in the hour, never mind the woman who sacrificed everything to keep her family safe?

What do you think? Was the death of Lani's baby moving, irritating, or something in between the two? Does Ciara's story make any sense to anybody? Which character has fallen the furthest from grace in your mind?

Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for our Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion!

Ciara waffled between fearing Ben and trusting him, Chad considered going to the dark side, and Lani found out she lost her baby on this week’s Days of Our Lives.

TV Fanatics Jack Ori and Christine Orlando are joined by Sportsgirl from MyHourglass a Days of Our Lives fan forum to debate Ari’s reaction to Gabi, Chad’s choices, Abe bailing on Lani, and Theresa suing for custody this week in Salem.

Do you think that Chad is headed to the dark side, or does he have his own plans where Kate is concerned?

Sportsgirl: I do believe Chad will present a tougher side, but I just can't believe he will ever include the tactics used by Stefano. I am pretty sure Chad still wants Thomas to inherit a legal company in DiMera, so selling his soul to the devil just wouldn't make sense.

Jack: I really hope he has a plan to take down Kate, but it seems he's been having an attitude that he should be more like Stefano lately and Kate played on that. Ugh.

Christine: I know how much he wants to get his revenge against his brother, but I hope that what Kate did to Sonny has Chad thinking about turning against her. I’m guessing he’s going to play both sides of this for a while, but anything is possible.

After Ari’s tirade, should Gabi have left, or gone back and told her the truth about where she’s been?

Sportsgirl: Gabi was still showing signs of her abuse. I am not sure Ari would totally understand why Gabi was in prison, but maybe it could have told in a way that a young child would understand.

Maybe something where she had to go to jail because people lied about her and she had to prove that they lied. It would also teach Ari to never lie because you can really hurt someone.

Jack: I think Gabi needs to be the adult and get some perspective. Young children sometimes say awful things, even to their parents, that they don't really mean, and she should realize that Ari's anger right now doesn't mean she's never going to have a relationship with her daughter ever again.

If Gabi needed to get out of the house to cool down before trying to approach Ari again, fine, but she should definitely keep trying.

Christine: They need to explain the truth of what happened in an age-appropriate way. Right now, Ari just thinks her mommy was away on business for weeks and that she didn’t care enough to come home. It’s left Ari feeling abandoned and angry.

Gabi may need time to collect herself, but I hope she comes back and tells Ari the truth about why she was gone so long.

Lani Hears the Bad News - Days of Our Lives

Should Abe have told Lani about losing the baby rather than making her wait to hear it from Eli?

Sportsgirl: In a way, yes. First I was surprised they hadn't discussed this ahead of time and had it planned out. Abe & Eli together would have been a better idea. First Abe tells her the news, then Eli enters the room to share in the grief.

Jack: I think that Abe made things worse by the way he handled it. It seemed like he was just dodging the subject. At the very least, he should have said that he had news about the baby but that the doctor may want to talk to her about it.

Also, the idea that Lani is too fragile to hear her baby died is ridiculous. It would be cruel to let her think the child is alive for longer than necessary.

Christine: I thought Abe was a coward and that making Lani wonder and wait to hear about the death of her child was cruel. She needed to hear the words and if Abe couldn’t do that he should have let someone else sit by her side until she woke up.

Is Teresa right to be suing for full custody of Tate? Do you think there's any way she'll win?

Sportsgirl: Theresa is completely wrong to sue for full custody of Tate. This is not thinking of Tate, this is only thinking of herself. I realize she is only doing this to force Brady in a corner to take her back and leave Eve, but all this will do is hurt herself and Tate. This is not the warm fuzzy Theresa that she had become.

Showing she is a warm loving Mom, having Brady remember how she used to be, is a much better idea. A court of law is going to see two lousy parents for sure. Maybe they will give custody to Maggie?

Jack: I'm so disappointed in this. Theresa left to protect Brady and Tate and now she's using Tate as a way to manipulate Brady into breaking up with Eve.

If this were a real-life situation, there's no way she would win, but this is Salem where the laws are what the writers want them to be at the moment and judges and lawyers are all stupid and incompetent so...

Christine: I hate this selfish version of Theresa. Instead of spending time bonding with her son, she’s using him to try to either win Brady back or punish him.

Neither one of them is a great parent. Brady’s an addict who frequently pawns his kid off on other people, and Theresa’s been MIA for a year and a half. I can’t believe a judge will look kindly on either of them.

Is Eve selling Basic Black to Stefan a good deal?

Sportsgirl: Selling Basic Black to Stefan is a bad idea. Stefan is not to be trusted. Look what Vivian, Andre and himself did to Gabi Chic. Once they got the company they fired Gabi. He could do the same to them.

Jack: No, no, a thousand times no. This is trouble waiting to happen. He already double-crossed Eve once and that should tell her to get as far away as she can from him.

Christine: Stefan practically has a giant neon sign over his head that’s blinking “Don’t Trust Me, Ever!” But Brady and Eve are both clueless enough to do it.

Rafe and Hope Work to Find Ciara - Days of Our Lives

What, if anything, disappointed you this week in Salem?

Sportsgirl: Days made me feel like they may be heading to a JJ and Lani reconciliation. I really hope this isn't true. In my opinion, they never had chemistry together. Lani felt more like his sister than a lover. I was really hoping for a JJ and Gabi reconciliation. Those two definitely had the IT factor.

Jack: This whole awful Ciara/Ben storyline. It's totally unrealistic and makes no sense. Ciara thinks Ben may be planning to kill her but wants to stay isolated with him. What? Also, it seems to be a vehicle to get Hope and Rafe back together more than anything else.

And JJ needs to stay far away from Lani, dead baby or no dead baby, instead of acting like he's five seconds from admitting she's the love of his life (newsflash: she's not!).

Also, Theresa's selfishness, using her child to get revenge on Brady or get him to take her back, whichever it is, just makes her look terrible.

Finally, Kayla keeping secrets from Steve is not the story I wanted to see. I was enjoying her and Steve dealing with his blindness TOGETHER. Stop ruining the best couple in Salem!

Oh and Chad, go back to being the Dimera who's the exception to the rule, please. It looks like we're setting up for Chad and Gabi to be the new evil couple and I don't like that.

Christine: Everything Stefan! The guy is repulsive. He’s even managing to ruin Steve and Kayla. Can’t he be the victim in the next murder whodunit? Now that would make me happy. Secondly, who is dressing Kate these days? Her outfits and hairstyles make it very difficult to concentrate on her scenes.

What was your favorite quote, scene or storyline on this week’s Days of Our Lives?

Sportsgirl: This was a tough week for a favorite as most scenes were pretty sad, including making Kayla help Stefan, UGH, but for some unknown reason as to why I am enjoying the relationship building between Ciara & Ben. I like the friendship, hoping it doesn't become a romance, but I do believe it will lead to Ciara being able to deal with the rape and the issues that go with it.

The bonus, having Robert Scott Wilson's acting chops involved. This actor rocks his scenes and you really cannot tell if he still is really psycho or if he really has changed. He is so enjoyable to watch.

Jack: I enjoyed Theresa supporting JJ. This is the Theresa I want to see! And even though I still despise Lani, the baby death scenes were very well done.

Christine: Theresa and JJ’s friendship has become a highlight of the show. I like the way they can be honest with one another with no hint of romance. I hope it stays that way.

Want to chat more about the happenings in Salem? Check out Jack Ori’s Days of Our Lives review here at TV Fanatic.

View Slideshow: 17 TV Cop Partnerships For the Ages

We think it's fair to say that Stephen Nichols has had a frosty relationship with Days of Our Lives of late.

The veteran daytime actor took to Instagram back in April to open up about the Soap Opera Digest "Performer of the Week" award gifted to him and co-star Mary Beth Evans.

“I do believe continuing to weave Steve and Kayla’s past into present day story is intelligent writing," he said via Instagram.

"However, one day per week (or less) doesn’t give the fans enough time to live with these characters. Respectfully, hoping for a remedy to this.”

With that, Stephen's future on the NBC soap has been up in the air ever since. On Thursday night, Nichols took to Instagram once again with a statement.

You can read it below.

For me, Days of Our Lives is home and I want to be there … I love the people, I love Steven Earl Johnson and I love what Mary Beth and I have been able to create together. I was excited to see what this new team would bring for us and for all of Salem.

I’ve been in this business long enough to understand the rotation of stories, and I get that we can’t always be at the forefront. And despite my disappointment in the lack of story this past year, I’ve always worked hard and we’ve always tried to find the moments in whatever we’ve been given.

I think we did that. Whenever I see a scene or montage you guys post, I am so touched and I remember just how much story we told for so many years and how rich it was.

I’m so grateful for that. And I know that there are still years of Steve and Kayla’s story left to be told. I hope we get to tell that story. Your unwavering support tells me you hope that too.

Thank you and much love, Stephen #Days @marybeth.evans #patchandkaylaforever

For me, Days of Our Lives is home and I want to be there … I love the people, I love Steven Earl Johnson and I love what Mary Beth and I have been able to create together. I was excited to see what this new team would bring for us and for all of Salem. I’ve been in this business long enough to understand the rotation of stories, and I get that we can’t always be at the forefront. And despite my disappointment in the lack of story this past year, I’ve always worked hard and we’ve always tried to find the moments in whatever we’ve been given. I think we did that. Whenever I see a scene or montage you guys post, I am so touched and I remember just how much story we told for so many years and how rich it was. I’m so grateful for that. And I know that there are still years of Steve and Kayla’s story left to be told. I hope we get to tell that story. Your unwavering support tells me you hope that too. Thank you and much love, Stephen #Days @marybeth.evans #patchandkaylaforever
A post shared by Stephen Nichols (@stephen_e_nichols) on Jun 28, 2018 at 4:57pm PDT

The good thing is that it sounds like if the right deal comes along, Stephen would sign back up to appear. But it seems the actor wants more prominent storylines for his character.

What are your thought on this?

Would you watch without Stephen?

Hit the comments below.

Every time I start to like Gabi, she does something that is equal parts crazy and obnoxious.

I was done with her after her repeated excuses for dumping JJ in favor of Chad and her constant blaming and shaming him after Lani raped him.

Then she managed to get it together enough to save him from suicide and was a good, supportive friend throughout his ordeal. She seemed to be a decent person with decent morals who stood up for herself and for what was right.

Unfortunately, recently Gabi became the victim of a ridiculous storyline involving her being falsely accused of crimes that any person with half a brain would realize she was not capable of committing and she got victimized over and over in a series of stupid plot twists.

When Gabi finally emerged from this storyline, she decided she wanted revenge at all costs and is once again obsessed with breaking up Abby and Chad.

And on Days of Our Lives during the week of 6-25-18, she took another step towards total unlikeability, insisting that the only reason Abigail could have betrayed her was that she wanted revenge on her for sleeping with Chad two years ago and not because Abby suffers from a severe mental illness.

Her arrogance and lack of empathy are astounding, and she's again become an obnoxious one-note character who only cares about stealing Chad for herself.

Who thought that viewers actually wanted to see this?

Every time Gabi has become Chad-focused, it's been a train wreck, and this is no exception.

Gabi's insistence that Abigail must have been seeking vengeance, despite knowing that Abby was released from a mental hospital the same day Gabi was released from jail, was the height of arrogance.

View Slideshow: 13 of TV's Most Successful (if Dreaded) Love Triangles

Gabi has become selfish again, thinking that everyone obsesses over her and Chad just like she does.

What a coincidence. You were in the mental hospital for exactly as long as I was in prison for the second murder I didn't commit.
Gabi
Permalink: What a coincidence. You were in the mental hospital for exactly as long as I was in prison...
Added: June 29, 2018

To be fair, Gabi has a point about how quickly Abigail was deemed sane enough to come home. Dissociative Identity Disorder cannot be cured in a month, nor does integration involve the person magically remembering things they did while in an altered state of consciousness.

This unrealistic, simple solution to Abby's problems is an insult to the field of mental health, as has been this entire DID storyline.

That doesn't change the fact that in the context of this story, Abigail was not in control of herself and harmed Gabi because of severe mental illness, and Gabi's selfish presumption that it was personal lacks empathy.

In addition, she twisted the knife about Abigail's rape, blaming and shaming her for it the same way she did to JJ after Lani raped him.

There is no way this is the same woman who talked JJ out of shooting himself in the head to try to atone for Theo's being in a coma.

Instead, selfish, Chad-obsessed Gabi pretended to befriend Abigail and encouraged her to keep her potential pregnancy secret from Chad, or at the very least, keep it to herself that the baby might not be his.

First of all, Lani was recently begging Gabi not to tell JJ the truth about the paternity of her baby, while Gabi told her firmly that it was cruel to keep the child's real paternity secret and that JJ and Eli both needed to know the truth.

And even if Gabi has conveniently forgotten this fact, Abigail and her newly intact memory should realize how heartbroken JJ was when that truth came out and resolved not to do the same thing to Chad that Lani did to her brother.

It's also incredibly obvious that Gabi plans to spill the beans herself to Chad at the most inopportune moment so that she can cause trouble between him and Abigail and maybe break them up so she can have Chad for herself.

View Slideshow: 15 Shows That Will Inspire You to Travel the World

Yawn. Chad/Gabi 1.0 and 2.0 were awful, and 2.0 involved rewriting history to make them high school sweethearts who played baseball together when Gabi as initially written hated baseball, became obsessed with Chad and indirectly caused the death of Abigail and JJ's father through her plot to fake being stalked so that Chad could rescue her..

So why, exactly, are we doing this again, complete with the rewritten history?

There's also something gross about using Abby potentially having been impregnated by her rapist as a plot point to further Gabi's latest attempt to steal Chad's heart.

It's bad enough that for the most part, the show has backpedaled on calling this rape what it is. Abby now remembers the sex and has decided since her alter Gabby wanted it, it was consensual.

It no longer seems to matter to anyone but Steve and possibly Chad that Abby's mental illness rendered her incapable of consent.

View Slideshow: 17 Most Dramatic TV Kisses

Nor does anyone care that Stefan deliberately provoked that mental illness because he knew that if Abigail continued to be in control of herself, she would reject his advances, but if he could cause her to dissociate, the alter Gabby would be happy have sex with him.

And Abby's memories of everything seems to be missing the fact that 30 seconds before the sex happened, she WAS in control and told Stefan not to touch her and to get the hell away from her.

Instead, Abby taking responsibility for sex she did not and could not consent to is implied to be a sign of her new maturity, and the rape has been transformed into yet another Who's The Daddy story where the woman is afraid to tell her husband the baby might not be his.

This is the 21st century. It's about time for DAYS to return to the progressive attitudes it held in the 1970s and 1980s when rape was treated as a serious issue rather than as a plot point.

Ben And Ciara Grow Closer - Days of Our Lives

Another case in point is this nonsense with Ciara and Ben.

Ciara's bizarre behavior supposedly comes from her belief that she's "damaged goods" because she got raped, but that's not exactly the focus of this story.

Ciara called Claire this week to tell her to take her job at Bella Magazine -- the one she fought so hard to steal from Claire in the first place -- and to have a nice life with Tripp.

She blamed Claire for her own choice to first not tell Tripp about the rape and then tell him, then told him to be with Claire and hung up on him.

It seemed more like someone read an article about PTSD in sexual assault survivors and decided to give Ciara random symptoms than anything true to her character. Also, it quickly began to seem like her trauma over the rape was just an excuse because she really wasn't into Tripp.

After all, she had no problem with Ben knowing about the rape and told him what happened the second he asked. Then she started flirting and otherwise expressing interest in Ben, culminating with the two of them laughing about how much Hope would hate seeing them together.

Now, some sexual assault survivors do become promiscuous to compensate for what happened to them, but there's no evidence that's what's happening here. Instead, the rape was only an issue to create a triangle between Tripp, Ciara -- and Ben.

It takes a special kind of sick to hurt your sister. If anyone ever laid a hand on Jordan, I'd kill them.
Ben
Permalink: It takes a special kind of sick to hurt your sister. If anyone ever laid a hand on Jordan,...
Added: June 29, 2018

While taking the longest time ever to cook some carrots, Ben learned all about Ciara's rape and threw shade on Chase for being sick enough to harm his step-sister.

It's nice that the man who killed three people and attempted to kill two others to get revenge for being jilted draws the line at sexual assault, I guess. But it seemed hypocritical, to say the least, for him to say anything about other people being especially sick in the head.

Meanwhile, it seemed this story was more or less a vehicle to get Hope and Rafe back together.

Hope fretted and panicked, while Rafe was the voice of reason, reminding her that Ciara was an adult and had the right to stay away if she wanted but agreeing to help her find her anyway.

Hope screamed at Rafe that he couldn't understand because he didn't have kids, which I guess was supposed to hit him in the gut since she apologized profusely, but he didn't seem all that upset about it. Then they got to work, and Hope finally figured out that Ciara was with Ben.

By then, Rafe was back to questioning Hope's intelligence, continually asking her if she was sure this was the case, and then they shared a hug while she cried.

I've been enjoying Hope and Rafe as friends and fellow detectives, but I can't take another round of these two trying to make a relationship work.

When Hope and Rafe were arguing about whether or not Rafe should have called off the search for Ciara, I felt like the writers were trying so, so hard to recreate what she and Bo had.

But it didn't work because Rafe is no Bo Brady, and Hope becomes weak and spineless whenever she spends too much time with him.

Meanwhile, Theresa and Brady fought over custody of Tate.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed JJ's part in these scenes. When I read spoilers that JJ was going to take Theresa's side, I thought it was going to be yet another story that dumbed JJ down, paired him with a woman who was unworthy of him and made him the town pariah for no good reason.

Instead, JJ was the sole voice of maturity and reason. It's clear that he is trying to be a good friend to Theresa and get her to think about what she's doing. It reminds me a lot of the way Daniel was able to balance out Nicole when their relationship was written true to the character back in 2013 or so.

It's not the same situation, but when I found out Lani's kid wasn't mine, I felt like I lost a child. So I understand your fear of losing Tate. You sacrificed two years of your life in Mexico to keep him safe. You don't deserve to lose him. I'm Team Theresa all the way.
JJ
Permalink: It's not the same situation, but when I found out Lani's kid wasn't mine, I felt like I lost...
Added: June 29, 2018

While he seems to be blinded to some degree by his desire to have had a baby with Lani, something that I'm relieved never came to pass, he also seems to be a genuinely good guy who both defends Theresa and tries to talk her out of going too far and to protect Tate's actual best interest.

Theresa needs that, and if she were staying on the show longer, I'd be interested to see where this goes.

Jen Lilley and Casey Moss are both strong actors, and their characters have complicated histories, so a potential JJ/Theresa pairing could be interesting, but since Theresa is reported only to be on canvas for a few months, it's hard to get invested in them.

There were a ton of developments in the Sonny/Leo story.

I hate this story. It makes a mockery of real sexual harassment victims, it's not clear why Kate was doing that when she was going to tell Sonny about the plot back when she found out Vivian was engineering it, and it appears to be a contest to see who can be stupidest.

Sonny twice met with Leo outside of the presence of his attorney to try to resolve this.

View Slideshow: 17 Starcrossed Couples Who Can't Catch a Break

The first time, he pretended to be into Leo so that he could get a recorded confession, risking implicating himself further if Leo had a hidden camera.

The second, he at least realized that was a possibility, but he allowed Leo to frisk him anyway and then listened while Leo suggested they get married in exchange for Leo dropping the lawsuit.

That demand made no sense, and neither did Sonny continually trying to meet with Leo in private when the guy had already lied about the nature of their relationship once!

The Best Couple in Salem - Days of Our Lives

The best part of this story was Kayla catching Kate in the act.

For the record, I'm not a fan of Kayla working with Stefan. I love that she's willing to do anything for Steve, but he seems to be fine with staying blind until the day comes that Stefan doesn't have a proprietary hold on the bionic eye technology, so it doesn't seem entirely necessary.

Plus, after hearing the sad news that Stephen Nichols did not renew his contract, I'm worried that the writers will go the idiotic exit story route and break Steve and Kayla up over the secret she's keeping.

Anyway, Kayla unmasking the Kate/Leo connection was all sorts of sweet. Kate screwed over Steve and Kayla not that long ago, and this Leo stupidity needed to end.

I knew that Stefan was going to try to string Kayla along, demanding more and more from her before he gave her the bionic eye for Steve, and I loved seeing Kayla put him in his place about that.

Kayla is one of the few genuinely strong women left on this show, and I love it when she doesn't let people mess with her or Steve!

Will was in a hurry to get his memories back. I was glad that he finally told Paul he was having memories of Sonny and doubly glad that the fact that he kept the first memory secret for a few days wasn't a big deal.

After all, Paul did the same thing when he first found out Will was still alive.

Will was right that it was his decision whether or not to risk taking the serum, though it didn't seem like stealing a vial and injecting himself without the slightest idea what the dosage is supposed to be was a great idea. I loved how supportive Paul was trying to be despite his fear that Will will leave him for Sonny.

What did you think of Days of Our Lives during the week of 6-25-18? Are you finding the stories sizzling hot or is this summer a dud so far? Do you like Gabi better as a bad girl or a good girl? Does Ciara's behavior make sense to anybody?

Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for the Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

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Sonny confronted Leo without his lawyer, Gabi turned evil, and Theresa and Brady’s custody battle began on Days of Our Lives during the week of 6-25-18.

Our TV Fanatic Jack Ori is joined by Kpatch and Tony from My Hourglass: A Days of Our Lives Fan Forum to debate who’s the stupider person in the Sonny/Leo mess, what dirt we’d like to see Ted dig up on Brady, and more.

Who do you think is acting more stupidly: Sonny or Leo?

Kpatch: Honestly, it’s a toss-up. Sonny should not be meeting with Leo without his lawyer present. He’s a lawyer’s son. He should know better. Leo is merely desperate.

Tony: They're both acting stupidly, but I think Sonny a little bit more so. You shouldn't meet somebody who's suing you without your lawyer present.

Jack: I agree -- they’re both acting like idiots. Sonny seems incredibly naive and clueless to me. He risked further implicating himself TWICE, let Leo frisk him in what looked like a sexual manner, and continued to think he could just talk Leo out of this lawsuit. Sheesh!

Theresa Vs Brady and Eve - Days of Our Lives

What dirt would you want Ted to dig up on Brady if you were writing this story? His drunkenness while he had sole custody of Tate, his blackmail of Nicole, or something else?

Kpatch: Something else. I think Theresa could use Brady’s relationship with Eve against him if her lawyer tells the judge that Eve drugged JJ and later seduced him when he was 18 or 19. The judge would not want to place a child in the same household with her.

Tony: Everything. I really wouldn't be bothered if Ted dug up every dark thing he ever did.

Jack: Oooh I love your idea Kpatch! Eve never answered at all for having been behind JJ being drugged, and if Theresa’s past is fair game, so is Brady’s.

I also think the fact that he’s been with two different women in the two years since Theresa left, stalked Nicole and Eric when he should have been attending to Tate, and has been drunk more often than not while Tate’s sole custodian should be sufficient grounds for him to lose custody.

Do you like Gabi being cold and calculating, or do you prefer her as a good girl?

Kpatch: I prefer Gabi as a good girl. I don’t like it when characters’ personalities are switched just for the sake of the plot.

Tony: I think she should be good, but with an edge, like she used to be. Right now, she's reminding me too much of the way she was when she caused the explosion that led to Jack's death.

Jack: I agree with all of the above. Gabi has turned evil/crazy in the past, but she seemed to have grown past that and I don’t like when characters regress to poor behavior.

I can’t believe this is the same woman who talked JJ out of suicide! And what is she doing telling Abby to keep the baby’s paternity secret when she was strongly against Lani doing that to JJ?

Did you agree with Hope that she should continue searching for Ciara or with Rafe that she's an adult and if she doesn't want to be found, that's her business?

Kpatch: I understand Hope’s concern and wanting to protect Ciara especially since Hope suspects Ciara isn’t alone and is possibly being held against her will.

Tony: I can see Hope's side. I'd continue the search.

Jack: I can see Rafe’s point that Ciara is legally an adult, but Hope was right that they didn’t really know whether she was being forced to make that call, and her sudden desire to be left alone seemed bizarre. Given that, I think Hope was absolutely right to continue searching.

How do you feel about Kayla keeping the deal she made to Stefan to herself? Dealbreaker or should Steve understand if/when he finds out?

Kpatch: One way or the other, the secret is going to come out. Steve will be angry but he should really understand that she’s only doing this because she loves him. Of course, her quality of life will improve when Steve regains his eyesight, but really, what she’s doing is a selfless act.

Tony: Steve's not gonna be too thrilled when he finds out. I hope he's not too mad, but I have a bad feeling that this might be a dealbreaker. I hope I'm wrong, though.

Jack: I’ve been worried since this story began that it’s going to end with Steve and Kayla breaking up for the stupidest of reasons. This shouldn’t be a big deal, but the writers’ idea of drama sometimes seems to be ridiculous conflicts and I don’t trust that this won’t be more of the same.

Which character or story do you most need a break from?

Kpatch: Chad! He’s becoming like EJ where he’s overexposed. Now he’s not only in the Dimera stories, but the Kiriakis stories too. He’s everywhere. I didn’t much like him to begin with and my dislike of characters only grows when they are overexposed.

Tony: Theresa. As excited as I was for her return, she's been nothing short of pathetic this time around. All of her character development seems to have been thrown out the window. I get that they're trying to show that she's been mentally and emotionally traumatized by what she's been through, but it's not coming across that way at all.

Jack: I agree with Tony about how disappointing Theresa's return has been, but for me the most overexposed character is Stefan. The guy has no redeeming value and is bothering someone virtually every day. I wish he’d find out Vivian is alive and depart for parts unknown to look for her.

Which character or story would you most like to see more of?

Kpatch: JJ, as long as he’s nowhere near Lani. He’s played by such a talented actor and he needs meaty material. I’m enjoying his interactions with Theresa a lot!

Tony: Definitely JJ! Steve, as well. I think it's ridiculous that we don't see that much of Steve when his storyline should be a major one.

Jack: I agree with both of you. I’ve been enjoying JJ’s interactions with Theresa and would love for him to have a proper storyline. I’m still disappointed that his suicidal depression story went nowhere. I also want more of Steve. And I’d like to see Jennifer actually working as a reporter again instead of just hearing her talk about it to Eric every now and then.

Want to chat more about what’s going on in Salem? Head over to Jack Ori’s Days of Our Lives review here on TV Fanatic.

View Slideshow: 17 Most Dramatic TV Kisses

As fans of television, we adore a good love story. We pick who we want together, we witness new love budding and growing, and we cheer it on.

Sometimes these couples frustrate us with their turmoil, but we know in the end, it'll all be worth it. We'll see their love in full bloom, and all will be right with the world.

Right?

Not always.

Sometimes the Grim Reaper has his own plans, and tears love apart right before our very eyes, leaving us a puddle on the floor.

Here are 24 couples whose love was denied by death. Which ones made you cry?

1. Mark & Elizabeth - ER

Mark and Elizabeth were both hesitant about finding love, but they couldn't deny their feelings for each other. We routed them on until they finally gave in, and fell in love. Just as we were feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, we found out Mark had a brain tumor and was going to die. We felt robbed! Mark and Elizabeth went away together and Mark died in Elizabeth's arms.

2. Bobby & Diane - NYPD Blue

Bobby and Diane always had sizzle on NYPD Blue, so it was no surprise when their love grew. They'd been through so much together, and stood by each other's side. When they got married, we were all so happy for them. That was until a medical condition to Bobby's life too soon, leaving Diane crushed with the rest of us.

3. Sawyer & Juliette - LOST

Throughout LOST, we had the love-ish triangle between Sawyer, Jack, and Kate. That was nothing compared to the chemistry we felt between Sawyer and Juliette later in the series. Now that was love. We saw a softer side of Sawyer reserved only for her, and it made him even more attractive. If that's possible. When Juliet fell down the shaft and later died in Sawyer's arms, our hearts broke right along with him.

4. Spencer & Maeve - Criminal Minds

Spencer relies mostly on his intellect in his job and his personal life. He doesn't take time out for romance, but there was something special about Maeve. The more they talked on the phone, the deeper in love they fell, and they hadn't even seen each other. When they finally laid eyes on each other, they were both kidnapped by a psycho lady who shot Maeve in the head. Right in front of Spencer! You can't get worse than that.

5. Phoebe & Cole - Charmed

Cole was a demon. All around bad entity, right? Not when it came to Phoebe. Their love was so strong, he renounced his evil demon side and fully embraced his human side, just so he could marry her. When he unwittingly becomes the source of evil, the charmed ones have no choice but to vanquish him. Even still, he returns for Phoebe, but it's no use, evil overcame him and the sisters had to kill Phoebe's husband for good.

6. Mark & Lexie - Grey's Anatomy

Mark and Lexie, like most Grey's couples, had an on again/off again relationship. Mark was historically a player, but he had a special spot for Little Grey and we all felt it. Too bad they wasted so much time not telling each other how they really felt. When they're plane went down and Lexie died right in front of him, his screams of agony were felt through the woods and right through our TVs.

View Slideshow

Custody battles are a soap staple, and with good reason.

When people who were once in love decide they can't stand the sight of each other, things can get ugly and children can get caught in the crossfire. Parents can lose sight of what it's doing to their kids to fight over them, and the drama can be off the charts.

Brady and Theresa's custody hearing heated up on Days of Our Lives during the week of 7-2-18. It was definitely dramatic, and it quickly devolved into a competition to see who could trash who the most.

It was entertaining, though not at all realistic. But really, should either of these two seemingly irresponsible people be responsible for the welfare of a small child?

Despite Judge Duncan's admonishment that the court needed evidence that one parent or the other was unfit before she could grant sole custody, the hearing quickly devolved into a bunch of seemingly irrelevant nonsense.

Eve brought Chloe in as a surprise witness, and Chloe complained about Theresa leaving her in Mexico and calling Mateo to warn him about John and Paul's planned ambush -- problematic behavior to be sure, but did it necessarily prove that Theresa was an unfit mother?

Having Chloe be involved at all was strange because the judge was the same one who had awarded custody of Holly to her. Theresa's lawyer brought up that previous custody suit to discredit her, yet the judge didn't seem to have any recognition of that fact.

I guess she was trying to be objective, but it made me feel as if the writers didn't fully remember the previous storyline.

Besides, if Ted wanted to discredit Chloe, he really should have pointed out that she kidnapped her own son to keep him away from his father and therefore wasn't the best judge of who was a good parent.

My son is growing up without a father because his father passed away. And I see what that's doing to him. He's confused. He's sad. What mother would wish that on her own son?
Chloe
Permalink: My son is growing up without a father because his father passed away. And I see what that's...
Added: July 05, 2018

And since Chloe never sees her son -- he stays with her parents in New York -- her claim that she knows how he's suffering due to his father's death was dubious in addition to being irrelevant to Theresa's case.

Eve might have called Chloe, but Theresa countered by calling one person after another who was actually on Brady's side. It seemed like they all stood up for Brady on the stand and apologized to him for being forced to say anything detrimental.

Theresa's claims that Brady was unfit were all centered around the fact that he seduced Eve to steal her company and has had several fiancees. That came uncomfortably close to sex-shaming for me.

I don't like Brady's tendency to jump from one love of his life to the next, but unless it can be proven that he paraded all these exes in front of Tate and that Tate was traumatized by losing these people he was attached to, it's irrelevant to his fitness as a parent.

Brady's history as an addict was the only thing that was actually relevant, but as Maggie pointed out, Tate was always taken care of at times that Brady was incapacitated.

I think it would have been a much stronger argument would have been the fact that he had been obsessed with Nicole and abusive towards her, bringing up the question of whether he had ever also been abusive towards Tate.

Ted dropped a bombshell towards the end of the custody hearing, implying that Brady is guilty of murder.

Brady is actually only guilty of blackmail, a crime Theresa has also often employed, and if the hearing was actually focused on what was best for Tate instead of on putting every witness on trial and trying to prove he or she was a bad person, the murder accusation never would have come up.

It was also ridiculous that Theresa didn't know Ted was going to ask about this.

I really dislike that Theresa is not only written as desperate, manipulative, and vindictive but also as an idiot.

I have a hard time believing that it never occurred to her that Brady might strike back by demanding full custody too or that when she told her lawyer to go after him using any means necessary, he might accuse him of a serious crime.

Theresa may be a schemer, but she's also smart and cunning, and I'm tired of characters -- especially women -- being dumbed down to suit the plot.

What did you do with your lunch break, Theresa? Plot 50 new ways to wreck Brady's life?
Eve
Permalink: What did you do with your lunch break, Theresa? Plot 50 new ways to wreck Brady's life?
Added: July 06, 2018

In any event, the between court appearance scenes convinced me that neither Brady or Theresa is mature enough to take care of a three-year-old. They were acting like preschoolers themselves, trading barbs every chance they got and verbally abusing one another instead of allowing their lawyers to handle the case.

Theresa was angry that Brady and Eve actually believed the lie she told about going back to being a party girl and didn't magically realize she was being held against her will as a sex slave when they didn't hear from her from months on end, which was ridiculous. Brady responded by yelling at her.

Neither one of them seemed focused on what was best for Tate, just on calling each other names. I felt bad for Tate, having these two as parents!

Meanwhile, for some inexplicable reason, JJ went to comfort Lani after the death of her baby instead of being there for Theresa like he'd promised. Then, when he got Theresa's text (which conveniently took forever to arrive), he decided to head back right away... and wasn't seen again until long after the hearing had resumed.

I know time can be wonky in Salem, but that was just ridiculous. I guess JJ hit 4th of July traffic, since Salem is the only place in America where the court is open on Independence Day.

Seriously, though, it seemed like the writers completely forgot that he told Lani he was going to head back to court, since he was next seen talking to Eric about how he wanted to support Theresa.

The timeline seemed to be disjointed, too, since it was dark outside the Pub when they met, yet the trial was still going on, and it wasn't clear from the dialogue whether JJ had seen Lani the same day or not.

: Because of what I've been through, I have a new rule. The only way to deal with mistakes , big or small, is to forgive yourself, be grateful for whatever the lesson in them is, and then let it go.
JJ
Permalink: : Because of what I've been through, I have a new rule. The only way to deal with mistakes ,...
Added: July 06, 2018

I don't like the idea of JJ slowly gravitating back towards a relationship with his rapist. When he told Lani she burned their whole relationship down, it should have been the permanent end of this awful pairing.

I did like JJ's wisdom and the advice he gave Lani, not that she deserves a friend like him.

But I also wished we'd seen him struggle with his emotions and grow into his new way of being on-screen instead of being given one pseudo-therapy session where Eric bought him breakfast before he was magically cured of his suicidal depression.

As much as I like JJ's friendship with Theresa -- and Theresa needs a friend like him, especially since the rest of Salem is all too eager to judge her -- his reasons for supporting her custody bid are proof he still needs therapy that he will never receive.

JJ feels Theresa's insistence on being Tate's sole custodian is equivalent to his desire to have been the father of Lani's baby.

Leaving aside the fact that it was completely out of character for JJ to be happy about having a baby out of wedlock with a woman he no longer wanted to be with, Theresa sharing custody of Tate with Brady is in no way analogous to JJ's heartbreak over learning Lani's baby was not his.

A proper therapist would explore the feelings that lie beneath JJ's attachment to Lani's baby and his need to make up for that loss by supporting Theresa despite the fact that it may not be good for his mental health to get involved in her drama.

Instead, we get Eric, who was always Theresa's biggest champion before, suddenly warning JJ every chance he gets that Theresa is trouble and that he should stay away without even bothering to probe for what this relationship means to JJ right now.

Pregnant With Her Rapist's Baby - Days of Our Lives

Worse still is the way Abigail's mental illness and her subsequent sexual assault are being treated.

Instead of treating Abigail's Dissociative Identity Disorder at all realistically, the writers chose to give her back her memories from when she was dissociated -- something which does not happen during integration.

The reason for this faulty depiction of integration of alters seems to be so that Abigail can claim that she now remembers consenting to sex with Stefan and thus was not raped.

In other words, the writers wanted an out so that instead of treating a rape story as rape, they can proceed with a cheating/who's-the-daddy story.

There are no words for how offensive this is.

It's almost worse than JJ's rape-never-treated-as-rape because viewers were given a token acknowledgment that what happened was non-consensual, only for it to be taken away again via a lie about how the mental illness Abigail is supposed to be suffering from works.

It's also an insult to viewers' intelligence. Even if you don't agree with the argument that Abigail's severe mental illness rendered her incapable of consenting to sex, there's the fact that 30 seconds before the sex happened she literally told Stefan not to touch her!

Abigail supposedly remembers everything, but this fact keeps getting skipped.

Why? Because it makes it clear that this was a non-consensual encounter, and treating Abby's rape as rape interferes with the story the writers want to tell.

The saddest thing about this is that a story about a woman struggling with the decision about what to do after a rape results in pregnancy could be a stronger, more powerful story than yet another who's-the-daddy story.

By denying that Stefan raped Abby, the writers are not only implying that rape is okay and that victims should be blamed for it, but also cheating the viewers of a story worth watching.

The story as written doesn't make much sense, either.

Despite some pseudo-scientific babble from Gabi about how Abby can't tell the paternity of her baby without getting DNA from both brothers, there's no reason for her to need both samples other than it being a good way to get Stefan suspicious about Gabi's motives.

And Abby should be wondering why Gabi -- the only person who thought that Lani should not hide the baby's true paternity from JJ -- is encouraging her to hide the baby's potential paternity from Chad. She also should think twice about doing it after the way Lani's deception hurt her brother.

So, in summary, instead of a powerful story about rape and pregnancy, we have a nonsensical version of the exact same story we had three years ago when Abby didn't know if her baby was Ben's or Chad's.

Ciara Protects Herself - Days of Our Lives

Ciara and Ben's story took a dark turn that again reinforced the myth that people with mental illness are violent and dangerous.

All of a sudden, Ben needed medication that he couldn't get because the cops were after him. As a result, he began hallucinating. He thought Ciara was handcuffed to the bed when she wasn't and saw his father encouraging him to kill her.

First of all, Ben's motive for killing the other women he killed had nothing to do with hallucinating about Clyde or anyone else.

It had to do with him being jealous of Chad and wanting to get revenge on him by framing him for the murder of people who had nothing to do with the situation.

He was not suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time he was arrested for kidnapping Abby and for all the murders; that was added in recently in order to accommodate his redemption storyline, or whatever it is this is supposed to be.

The minute Ben missed a dose of his medication, he seemed to turn into a dry drunk -- a person who has the mood swings and reduced inhibitions of a drunk person despite not having touched a drop of alcohol and who is often verbally abusive and out of touch with reality.

Then he started randomly hallucinating.

James Read, Robert Scott Wilson, and Victoria Konefal are all phenomenal actors and these scenes were intense and scary.

But they were also ridiculous, especially Ben snapping out of it because Ciara touched his hand -- something that is clearly a set up for a ridiculous love story where she can bring him back from the brink of insanity because of their heart connection.

Either he needs medication to stop him from losing touch with reality or he doesn't -- which is it?

In addition, Ben's claim that Ciara is the first person who's ever been nice to him and that's why he couldn't kill her is a lie. Paige was always nice to him too, and he killed her for no reason at all.

I need my meds and I can't get them because the cops are after me and I didn't do anything wrong!
Ben
Permalink: I need my meds and I can't get them because the cops are after me and I didn't do anything...
Added: July 05, 2018

One thing I do like about this story was that it touches on the difficulties ex-prisoners have in re-establishing their lives.

Ben's difficulty obtaining medication because the cops were after him was an example of the types of barriers former prisoners often face on a daily basis, and I would love to see a story about an ex-prisoner trying to move forward in a positive direction and finding himself blocked at every turn.

I don't think that story can be told with a serial killer as the star, and the references to unfair conditions for ex-prisoners was probably an accident, but it's about the only part of this that interests me at all.

The cops being too incompetent to find Ciara, the way Claire waffles back and forth between being terrified for Ciara and wanting Tripp to be into her, and Ben's stereotypical violent mental illness aren't compelling; they're irritating.

The only good thing about the cabin being set on fire again is that it means this story is just about over.

Finally, Sonny and Will got involved in a ridiculous story after Leo tried to choke Will and Sonny accidentally killed him when he pulled him off his ex's throat.

As happens at least once a year on DAYS, Sonny decided he couldn't report the incident to the police. Instead, he and Will hid the body in a rug, lied about what was going on, and eventually dumped it.

This kind of nonsense works as comic relief, I guess, but it was a poor vehicle for getting Hope and Rafe together when they did this with Stefano's body and it's just as awful as a way to reunite Will and Sonny.

Will is lying to Paul over and over and secretly helping Sonny stage a car accident -- all to cover up an accidental death that occurred because Leo was trying to kill Will.

Sonny claimed that he couldn't go to the cops because it would look suspicious, but what does he think all this rigamarole does? Calling his lawyer as well as the cops would have been the smart thing to do here, and I wish just once someone would do that.

And if Leo turns out to somehow still be alive like Nick was after Gabi, Sami, and Kate threw him in the river during a similar incident, I'm going to be extremely irritated.

View Slideshow: The 23 Most Irritating Characters of All Time

So now it's your turn, fellow DAYS Fanatics. Who do you think should get custody of Tate? What do you think of this Abigail pregnancy story? And are you enjoying Ben's struggle with madness?

Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for our Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

View Slideshow: 23 Characters Who Are as American as Apple Pie

We love our characters on TV. Whether we love to love them or love to hate them, our TV characters take us on a journey with them into their world and out of ours.

Some TV characters, though, grate on us like nails on a chalkboard. If they're not constantly making bad decisions, they're whining like a baby, and making us roll our eyes so hard they might pop out of our heads, every time they show up on the screen.

We begin to wonder if the entire point of them being on the show is to irritate us.

Because that's an emotion too.

Read through the 23 most irritating characters of all time, and see if you agree with our picks. Who would you choose as the king or queen of irritation?

1. Andrea - The Walking Dead

Andrea couldn't make a good decision if her life depended on it. And it did! She not only made poor decisions that affected her but put everyone's life at risk. On top of that, she was so sure she was right all the time, she wouldn't listen to anyone else. That's no way to be in an apocalypse, Andrea! She even put her trust in the governor, which had to be the most irritating move of all.

2. Kim - Law & Order: SVU

As they say, you can't pick your family, but Amanda deserves a sister so much better than Kim. She's just a tiny, blonde, steaming hot mess. It's irritating enough that she gets herself in trouble with her drugs, and her abusive boyfriend, but to bring Amanda into it? Every time she shows her face, Amanda gives her another chance and gets stabbed in the back. We're not sure who's more irritating, Kim for putting Amanda through the ringer or Amanda for falling for it every single time.

3. Seg-El - Krypton

What's irritating about Seg is that he's an ancestor of Superman, who always chooses the morally correct decision. Seg doesn't. When we meet Seg, he's an angry con-man, full of rage, making bad decision after bad decision. He not worthy of the House of El. Although we know his character arc will eventually bring him to the hero status he's destined to reach, it's almost painful to watch him on his journey.

4. Carrie - Homeland

Yes, we know, Carrie has bipolar disorder. We're not judging her irritation level for that. What makes Carrie so irritating is her constant poor decision making and constant state of crying. Some of that may be due to the fact she doesn't stay on her meds (irritating), but not all. She makes selfish decisions without any regard for who she hurts in the process, whether it be Peter (the only man to stand by her side) or her very own daughter. No one can make you scream louder at the TV than Carrie Mathison.

5. Jacinda - Once Upon a Time

Jacinda complains way too much to be a believable princess. She carries way too much drama and is somewhat of a hot mess. She also has zero chemistry with Henry, so watching them forced together is irritating. You're a princess, Jacinda, get your life together, girl.

6. Kimmy - Full House

At first, Kimmy was just the annoying and odd neighbor and best friend of DJ Tanner. As they grew up, Kimmy became just plain annoying with her bursting in the house, her weird crush on Uncle Jesse, and her making trouble for DJ, She wasn't good for DJ, and none of the other Tanners could stand her. She became their punchline. Sometimes friendships really shouldn't last.

View Slideshow

JJ continued supporting Theresa despite Eric's concerns, Ciara talked Ben through a psychotic episode, and the custody battle heated up on Days of Our Lives during the week of 7-2-18.

Our TV Fanatic Jack Ori is joined by Tony, Kpatch, and Fluffysmom from My Hourglass: A Days of Our Lives Fan Forum to debate whether JJ was right, who's winning the custody case, and all other things DAYS..

1. Eric discouraged JJ from getting swept into Theresa’s chaos, while JJ felt supporting her was the right thing to do and he could handle it. Who do you agree with and why?

Tony: I agree with Eric. Although it's nice that JJ is being supportive, and it does get him away from Lani, he doesn't need to be caught in the middle of Theresa's craziness.

Kpatch: I agree with JJ and I think Eric should be happy Theresa has a friend instead of encouraging people to isolate her. That’s plain wrong. I loved how JJ objectively sees the whole picture including the fact that Eve’s no saint. I was glad someone finally said that.

Fluffysmom: They both have valid viewpoints. I do like JJ being a supportive friend to Theresa. It's good that JJ has a focus away from Lani.

Jack: I’m mostly on JJ’s side on this one. Eric’s already given JJ his opinion on this, and I agree with fluffysmom that JJ having a focus other than Lani is good for him. I am concerned about his insistence that this custody battle is equivalent to Lani losing the baby, though, and I think he needs help exploring what that’s really about.

2. Ciara was able to get through to Ben in the midst of his psychotic break. Do you want to see these two be friends or more than friends?

Tony: I'd rather see them be friends. Though the two actors work very well together, and the scenes where Ben was losing it were awesome, I wouldn't want to see him and Ciara in a romantic relationship.

Kpatch: I’m not convinced that Ciara got through to Ben. He may have been pretending. I have no sympathy for her. She had the chance to get herself out of a potentially very dangerous situation and she chose to stay. Not smart. Whatever happens, she has only herself to blame.

Fluffysmom: I like the idea of Ciara and Ben being friends as long as he takes his meds and stays in therapy. It's an added bonus that it would drive Hope crazy.

Jack: If Ben can really stay stable, he and Ciara being friends might work. I definitely don’t want to see anything more than that, and I don’t like the implication that they’re soulmates and that’s why Ciara was able to get through to him in the middle of a psychotic episode.

3. Who do you think is winning the custody battle so far, and do you think that person should get custody?

Tony: At this point, I'm not really sure that either major party is winning, though I'd like to see Eve get custody. She's very good with Tate and has been there while Theresa was gone.

Kpatch: I think Theresa has the upper hand because her lawyer cast boatloads of suspicion on Brady in Deimos’s unsolved murder. Even if no one thinks Brady killed Deimos, he admitted to planting evidence on an innocent party, and that is criminal behavior.

Fluffysmom: At the moment I think Theresa is winning but I don't think either one of them is looking like a good parent and role model. I don't think either of them should get full custody. It's better for Tate to have time with both of them.

Jack: It’s hard for me to tell who’s winning since half of Theresa’s witnesses seemed to be more helpful to Brady than her and there was an awful lot of irrelevant info brought into this trial.

I don’t think either of these parents is particularly good for Tate and I’m kind of hoping the judge grants custody to Maggie, the only stable person involved in this entire mess!

4. What do you think Sonny and Will should have done about Leo’s death?

Tony: They should have gotten in touch with Victor and told him everything. Victor would do anything to help Sonny, especially if he knew what Leo was doing to him.

Kpatch: They should have called Roman to help them roll up the rug. LOL. He’s good at sweeping crimes under the rug, after all.

Fluffysmom: They should have called the police or at least told Victor. And definitely don't walk around town talking about how you killed Leo.

Jack: LOL Kpatch! Roman definitely has done his share of sweeping crimes under the rug. But I think Victor was the best choice here. He’s cleaned up many, many messes of this nature over the years.

5. What would you have liked to have seen happen in Salem on July 4th?

Tony: I really miss the days when there would be a barbeque and everyone would come and hang out. It was a great way to get a lot of characters to interact, and I think it would be a nice break from all of the drama.

Kpatch: A barbecue or picnic with some fireworks would have been nice. DAYS used to make a big deal of holidays. One year, they saluted law enforcement. Now it’s just a mention of a canceled party.

Fluffysmom: I would have liked to see someone celebrating the holiday by enjoying a picnic and fireworks. I realize a lot of Salemites aren't in a party mood but they could have shown a few couples like Chad and Abby, Kayla and Steve, or John and Marlena enjoying the day.

Jack: I’m also disappointed that DAYS ignored the holiday altogether. The references to the canceled party were silly because the court case was going on -- what court is open on July 4???

I would have loved to see the core families celebrating together, and there would have been plenty of room for drama since many people (like Hope) have too much on their mind to really celebrate right now.

6. What couples do you find most rootable right now?

Tony: Despite Kayla going to Stefan for help, I still think Steve and Kayla are the most rootable couple for the moment.

Kpatch: I like Paul and Will. I also like JJ and Theresa’s potential. And it would be nice to see Jennifer and Eric together more than once a month. Other than that, I’m not really into any couple on canvas.

Fluffysmom: The only couples I feel like rooting for are Steve and Kayla, John and Marlena, and Valerie and Abe. I was rooting for Will and Paul but clearly that won't last. There's no point in rooting for any of Brady's revolving door of relationships.

Jack: Steve and Kayla, Doug and Julie, and Valerie and Abe are the only rootable couples for me right now. This show has an overabundance of random hookups and loveless relationships and these couples are the only ones bringing the romance, commitment, and sense of family that drew me to DAYS in the first place.

7. What couple do you most wish would never share a scene again?

Tony: JJ and Lani. There is absolutely no reason that these two should ever be together again.

Kpatch: Great question! Can I choose more than one? Lani/JJ and Hope/Rafe.

Fluffysmom: Rafe and Hope! This pairing has ruined Hope for me. I fear it will never really end until one of the actors leave the show.

Jack: I can’t stand either Rafe/Hope or JJ/Lani. JJ/Lani is slightly worse because it’s never been anything other than a woman trying to force a man to be with her, which is not at all entertaining. But I also agree with Fluffysmom that Rafe/Hope has ruined Hope’s character, potentially beyond repair.

Want to chat more about what's going on in Salem? Check out Jack Ori's Days of Our Lives review here on TV Fanatic!

View Slideshow: The 23 Most Irritating Characters of All Time

Longtime fans of Days of Our Lives sometimes joke about some of the crazy things you can expect when you watch this show.

Marlena always gets kidnapped by a crazy person, people elude the cops by wearing sunglasses or baseball caps, and DNA test results never come out right the first time.

Sometimes I'm not sure whether I'm laughing at or with these silly Salem tropes.

Waiting for Test Results - Days of Our Lives

But one thing I do know is that the more often a story is repeated, the less entertaining it is. There's something about the second, 20th, or 200th rendition of a story that grates on viewers' nerves and makes the show feel predictable and uninteresting.

It's even worse when the same story is repeated with the same characters, and that's exactly what happened with Abigail's baby drama on Days of Our Lives during the week of 7-9-18.

Abigail's story completely erases the fact that she was raped in favor of yet another "Who's the Daddy" story.

While Abby herself doesn't seem to understand that she was unable to consent to sex with Stefan, Chad does. So it's ridiculous for Abigail to be worried that he'll be angry at her if he finds out she's having her rapist's baby.

View Slideshow: The 23 Most Irritating Characters of All Time

The other person who is aware that Abigail's rape was what it was is Steve. So even though I loved seeing Kayla support Abby, I was disappointed that she didn't bring up the R word, nor did she try to talk to Abby about coming to terms with what had been done to her.

Instead, Kayla gave Abigail the same advice she gave Lani: don't cause yourself and your unborn baby extra stress by keeping secrets from your partner.

I was hoping she'd also add a reminder of what keeping that secret did to Abigail's brother.

You'd think Abby would be reluctant to lie to Chad about a pregnancy and/or the parentage of her baby after seeing JJ's heart broken, but apparently, viewers are expected to forget that story ever happened now that the baby's gone.

Kayla: Ben claims he was just trying to help her [Ciara].
Abigail: Of course he did. He's delusional and out of his mind. Who in their right mind would let him out of the santiarium? And I'm sure everyone is going around saying the same thing about me.
Permalink: Of course he did. He's delusional and out of his mind. Who in their right mind would let him...
Added: July 13, 2018

Anyway, the focus of the story during the week of 7-9-18 appeared to be a set-up for another DNA switch.

In a series of improbable and unrealistic events, a lab tech left the paternity test results unattended, seemingly not concerned that a patient was sitting in Kayla's office by herself while she put the envelope on the desk.

In a way, I can't fault DAYS for having these kinds of silly setups. The super unrealistic nature of things seems to be part of the culture of this show, and I don't bat an eye when doctors are specialists in every area of medicine or students fly through getting a complicated degree in two months' time.

There's unreality, and then there's contrived nonsense, though, and that's what this set-up seemed to be.

It's bad enough that the lack of security at the hospital allowed Will to steal a vial of serum a while back. A lab tech leaving sensitive info about a patient out in plain sight and making a point of telling a different patient what it went too far.

View Slideshow: 17 TV Cop Partnerships For the Ages

In addition, this is the third time Kayla having confidential files in non-confidential places was used as a plot device in as many months. First, Valerie got her hands on Lani's records because Kayla left them at the nursing station. Then Jennifer found Abigail's file on Kayla's desk while visiting her for an unrelated reason.

Kayla always makes a point of announcing she can't violate patients' privacy when asked, so can she please take a refresher course on how to protect patient data and stop being so careless?

Granted, this last one wasn't her fault, but she didn't seem at all concerned that the tech left the envelope on her desk while she wasn't there or that she didn't know where it was.

For all she knew, Stefan had come in and walked off with a paper potentially naming him as the father of Abby's baby!

It's beyond time to retire this silly plot device. Nobody should trust paternity test results that come from this hospital; in fact, they should presume that whoever the hospital names as the father is not related to the baby.

In this case, it's doubly annoying because we already went through this with Abby once. When Thomas was conceived back in 2015, she didn't know whether Chad or Ben was the father. Clyde changed test results to make it appear the baby was Ben's, while Ben lost his mind and began killing people to get revenge on Chad.

Fast forward to 2018 and Ben is in jail, accused of setting fire to kill Ciara in the same cabin that he set on fire to try to kill Abby and Chad at the climax of the previous story.

DAYS at least acknowledges the parallel in this case -- in fact, it's being used as a catalyst for a story about no one trusting Ben's redemption except Ciara.

But as far as Abigail goes, we don't need another storyline where she doesn't know whether or not Chad is the father of her baby. There has to be some other story that can be told about this couple other than Abigail having babies without knowing the identity of the father.

Gabi is not a sympathetic villain, either.

This whole thing about her five-year-old hating her is not true to life. Children that young may express raw anger, but it doesn't last for days on end like that.

Chad suggested maybe it's because Ari has been through so much, but if that's the case, Gabi should be taking her to a therapist, not running around town whining that her kid hates her and coming up with convoluted revenge schemes.

The way she's handling this makes her seem weak and unable to deal with her young child appropriately.

The stage is being set for Ari to grow up to be a spoiled brat since Gabi's response to her anger is to leave the house in tears and start planning revenge and nobody is bothering to tell the little girl that throwing things is not an appropriate way to express her feelings.

View Slideshow: 24 Couples Whose Love was Denied by Death

In any case, Gabi began having a ton of pain while worrying about Ari's latest tantrum, which led to her learning she has an infection in her uterus, and there's a chance she might not be able to have more children.

A chance. Not a given. And Kayla made that clear.

But Gabi decided that means she's definitely not going to be able to have more kids in a distant future when she is ready to start a family, so therefore she has to punish Abigail and Stefan.

Once again, this seems like a stranger who bears no resemblance to the woman who saved JJ's life. And Gabi's plans involve Abby treating Chad the same way Lani treated JJ, even though she was the only one to stand up to Lani on JJ's behalf.

I can't believe Gabi is this cold, calculating, and two-faced, pretending to forgive Abigail and then doing everything she can to ruin her life. Once again, just as Gabi was becoming likable, she went back to petty, obnoxious behavior.

I was shocked to find myself having some sympathy for Ben.

I still hate the idea of Ben and Ciara as a romantic couple. It makes no sense for Ciara to reject Tripp because she thinks all men will take advantage of her like her rapist did, then fall hard for Ben, and there's something disturbing about her falling for the man who killed her cousin's girlfriend and tried to kill two of her cousins.

At the same time, I'm passionate about criminal justice reform, and I like that this story touches on some of the unfair ways people are treated when they are released from prison.

I doubt that theme will be treated any more realistically than JJ's suicide attempt was, but still.

And Robert Scott Wilson is doing an excellent job portraying Ben's mood swings, self-doubt, and desire to be trusted again.

Rafe and Hope, on the other hand, have become even more obnoxious as this story progresses.

Hope seems to have decided that, regardless of the facts, Ben must be guilty of setting the fire. After visiting Ciara in the hospital and ignoring everything she said about what actually happened, Hope ran off to the police station to tell Rafe to use their police power to prove to Ciara that her opinion of Ben is wrong.

This was a total abuse of police power.

Cops aren't supposed to use their investigative and detention powers to interfere in their children's relationships. And while Hope isn't entirely wrong to have reservations about Ben, she has no right to try to force a confession out of him, especially not when her reason for doing so is to say "I told you so" to her daughter.

In addition, Rafe's refusal to give Ben his psych meds in order to try to compel a confession was all sorts of wrong. Rafe came off as a corrupt cop who didn't care what he had to do to get the confession he wanted, and if Ben had become violent because of being denied his meds, it could have caused a dangerous situation.

What's next? Changing the info on the fire department's report if it doesn't conform to Hope and Rafe's preconceived idea of what happened?

Meanwhile, Theresa and Brady's custody trial also devolved into something that had no basis in reality.

After Theresa's lawyer accused Brady on the stand of murdering Deimos, Eve decided that meant he was going to prison for murder no matter what. Brady told her that Nicole was the real killer, causing the two of them to go around in circles about whether or not to tell the judge that.

First of all, neither Eve nor Brady seemed aware that doing that would implicate Brady and he'd go to jail for obstruction of justice and withholding evidence -- not murder, but he still wouldn't be free to raise Tate!

Of course, this is Salem, where laws only apply when it makes for a good story, but that possibility was never even brought up, which was silly.

More to the point, there were no cops at Brady's door asking to question him about the murder, nor did the judge warn Brady that he was in danger of being taken into custody after she reviewed this testimony to determine if there was probable cause to hold him.

So there was no reason for Eve to worry.

And once Eve decided to get Victor involved, it led to a ridiculous story for JJ that is far too close to what happened in 2013 for comfort.

Back then, Eve was uncomfortable with the idea of JJ and Paige dating and hired a prostitute to seduce JJ. When he wouldn't cooperate, the prostitute took matters into her own hands and roofied him.

Eve felt guilty about this unintended consequence but kept up the pretense that JJ had taken drugs on purpose in the hopes it would turn Paige against him.

The storyline was dropped without warning in favor of Eve taking advantage of a randomly drunk JJ to sleep with him and ruin the relationship with Paige herself.

Later on, Eve worked with JJ's nemesis Cole, who attempted to plant drugs in his backpack in the hopes that Paige would think he was using, and JJ got proof that Eve was behind it.

Nothing ever came of that either because Paige found out Eve and JJ had slept together and totally forgot that she was worried about someone planting drugs on JJ.

This latest scheme involved a seemingly crooked social worker planting drugs in JJ's apartment so that the judge would think Theresa was using and award custody to Brady instead. But JJ didn't like that idea and told the judge the drugs were his when they weren't.

View Slideshow: 18 Powerful TV Moments of 2017

The result is that for the third time, one of Eve's schemes backfired and caused JJ trouble involving drugs that aren't his but that some people think are.

I'd like to see something a little more original. There are also too many holes in the logic of this story.

Let's start with JJ's history.

Jennifer inexplicably worried that he would return to abusing drugs simply because Theresa was living with him, even though he didn't use when she was forcing him to get some for her in 2013, nor did he use when Paige dumped him, when she died, or when he was at his lowest point and was contemplating suicide.

He also he never used anything but weed, and Theresa's OD was in part due to the fact that he refused to take anything stronger and she took it for him.

That giant anvil announcing he would soon be accused of using drugs was ridiculous and only served to make Jennifer look like an oblivious parent who had no understanding of who her son is -- again.

Theresa: Why didn't you tell me you were using again?
JJ: I'm not! I've been clean for years.
Permalink: I'm not! I've been clean for years.
Added: July 13, 2018

Cocaine use changes people's behavior as well as causing physiological symptoms. It was unbelievable that Theresa thought for a second that the drugs were JJ's when his eyes are clear, his speech and movements are not at all speeded up, and she was recently praising him for his mature thought process.

The judge doesn't know JJ nearly as well, but it was obvious he was sober when he stood up in court and announced that the drugs were his. That alone should have raised her suspicions.

Worse still, cocaine is illegal, as the judge pointed out, yet nobody called the cops when the cocaine was found.

Instead, the social worker merely reported the discovery to the judge, who then called an emergency hearing to announce she was denying custody and visitation to Theresa without any evidence that the drugs were hers.

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It seems to me this whole matter could be resolved by ordering that both JJ and Theresa submit to drug tests and testing the baggie for fingerprints. The only one who touched it during the scene where it showed up was the social worker, so if their prints aren't on it that should be the end of that.

Instead, it seems likely that the judge will presume the drugs are JJ's based on nothing but his say so.

I'm curious as to whether he will suffer any legal consequences for admitting in court that he broke federal and state laws. If this story was written at all realistically, Justin would have attempted to have that self-incriminating remark stricken from the record and/or offered his services to JJ since he just confessed to a crime.

But nothing else in this trial has had any relationship to how legal proceedings work, so why should this be any different?

Finally, there was some more silliness in the Leo storyline. Will and Sonny discovered that Leo's car -- along with his body and the infamous rug that everyone keeps asking about -- mysteriously vanished.

All we need is for an alive Leo to show up and start blackmailing Will and Sonny and it will be a perfect repeat of Gabi, Sami, and Kate throwing Nick in the river in 2013.

In case anyone had any doubt where this is going, Will continued lying to Paul and pushing him away while spending lots of time with Sonny. I'm sure Paul will think they are having an affair soon and eventually it will lead to another epic heartbreak for Paul while Will and Sonny pick up their relationship where it left off.

This story also, for some reason, is a vehicle for Kate and Ted to get together.

I get that Ted is played by a handsome actor and that many people find French accents sexy. But I've had enough of sex for sex's sake, especially between people who started out hating each other and then jumped into bed for no reason.

Kate sleeps with men at the drop of a hat, but that doesn't make this relationship more interesting. It would help if there was more actual love in the afternoon so that the random hook-ups were part of the overall canvas instead of the only type of relationship depicted.

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For example, if Steve and Kayla had scenes more often, it would help balance out the Kate/Ted type stuff. But they didn't even get any screen time together this week!

What did you think of Days of Our Lives during the week of 7-9-18?

What was the most unrealistic storyline for you, and did the unreality detract from your enjoyment?

Did you like Kate and Ted sleeping together?

Are you into this Abby baby storyline, or does it feel too much like a rerun?

Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for our Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

View Slideshow: 17 Most Awkward TV Hugs

Leo’s body disappeared, the cabin in the woods mysteriously caught fire, and drugs showed up in JJ and Theresa’s apartment on Days of Our Lives.

Our TV Fanatics Jack Ori and Christine Orlando are joined by Stephanie and Mikey from MyHourglass a Days of Our Lives fan forum to decide who has Leo’s body, if Ben set the fire, if anyone will save JJ from himself and if Jenn and Eric really have a future together in Salem.

Who has taken Leo’s body and what do they plan to do with it?

Stephanie: Considering that Leo died in the Kiriakas mansion, my guess is that Victor has something to do with the disappearance of his body. Victor will do anything to protect his family, and he somehow always knows everything that’s going on too.

Victor probably realized how dumb Sonny and Will’s plan was and found a better way to make Leo’s body and car disappear for good. Maybe Xander was involved somehow since Victor likes to make him do his dirty work for him.

Mikey: Leo took his own body! Why do any of these people ever assume that someone they’ve “killed” is actually dead? Maybe chill out and verify it before you commit an additional felony. I fully expect Leo to come waltzing in at the least opportune time.

Jack: I'm not sure. I'm afraid that Leo will turn out to be alive and that we have another silly resurrection/blackmail story coming up. Other than that, I wonder if Vivian is back in Salem or if Stefan did it as part of his revenge plan against Kate.

Christine: I’m hoping Xander has Leo’s body and can use it to blackmail Victor into letting him run Titan. Sonny and Brady have been so inept that I actually ended up feeling bad that Xander never got his chance. He certainly couldn’t do any worse!

Did Ben set that fire at the cabin? Should he remain in Salem?

Stephanie: I don’t think Ben set the cabin on fire. He was going nuts without his meds, but Ciara had talked him down enough to convince him to go get his pills before the fire started. If he did set it, it was most likely done accidentally instead of intentionally this time. I would like to see Ben stick around for a while. Other characters have gotten chances to redeem themselves, so why not Ben?

Mikey: I don’t believe that he did. Considering there was apparently a hotplate just sitting out, I have a feeling that’s what started the fire because Ben forgot to turn it off or something. The fire marshal’s report will come back and Hope will look stupid for ranting and raving about her daughter defending a serial killer, which is wild.

I’m enjoying Ben’s presence in Salem and his interplay with Ciara, but if this were a remotely normal world, I’d suggest that he go seek a fresh start literally anywhere other than where the families of his victims all reside.

Jack: I don't think Ben set the fire, though he may have accidentally left the stove on or his generator might have had faulty wiring. I never thought I'd be rooting for him, but yes, he should remain in Salem and prove all those judgmental people wrong.

Christine: No, I don’t think he set it and it’s going to be fun watching Hope and Rafe have to eat crow when that comes out. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, because I never used to like Ben, but I hope he sticks around. He’s turned out to be one of the show’s better actors and I’ve been enjoying his return far more than I ever thought I would.

Were you shocked that JJ told the court the drugs were his? Is there any chance Eve will come clean?

Stephanie: I wasn’t shocked by JJ’s choice at all. He has become very protective of Theresa in the time that she’s been back on the show. He had just managed to help her decide to do the right thing as far as Tate is concerned, and he doesn’t want to see her immediately lose that success because of something that isn’t actually her fault.

As for Eve, I’m not sure what she will do. She tried to do the right thing and call her plan with Victor off, but now that it’s been launched anyway, she can’t exactly tell everyone the truth without losing the people who are important to her.

Mikey: I was surprised, in the moment, but it makes sense. JJ has a bit of a hero complex these days, and he’s really latched onto Theresa’s cause (for some reason I’m not entirely sure of).

I do not think Eve will come clean, at least not in the near future. In the grand tradition of Salem women, she’ll hang onto the secret to be with Brady and then it will blow up in her face.

Jack: Not shocked as much as disappointed. This is the third time Eve has got tangled up in something that resulted in JJ being accused of, or nearly being accused of, using drugs he didn't use! (Though him implicating himself was stupid).

I doubt Eve will come clean. I'm guessing this will drag on so that when the truth comes out, Brady will break up with Eve.

Christine: Oh JJ! I love his protective streak but this could really hurt his career. I can’t imagine an EMT who uses drugs gets to keep their job very long. JJ or Theresa could have simply asked to be drug tested to prove the drugs weren’t theirs.

I desperately hope that Eve does the right thing, for JJ’s sake, but I’m not expecting it. And all of this drama between these two women competing to keep Brady Black makes me roll my eyes so hard that it hurts.

Jennifer and Eric Talk - Days of Our Lives

Do Jennifer and Eric have a future as a couple or is she just a placeholder for Nicole? (please don’t give away any spoilers.)

Stephanie: Jennifer and Eric have seemingly been stuck in the same place since they first got together. I haven’t really seen much progression in their relationship, so I’m not sure that they have any great future ahead of them.

They kind of remind me of Abe and Valerie. They’re happy and have no major problems with each other, which is nice to see.

Unfortunately, though, I think it is very possible for Eric to be tempted to go back to Nicole if the opportunity ever arises. He doesn’t think straight when she’s around.

Mikey: I enjoy their chemistry and their relationship, but it’s way too low-stakes to survive on a soap opera. They drained all the tension out of their relationship too quickly, and now they’re basically Doug and Julie, but decades younger.

It’s like they fast-forwarded them decades and blew past all the obvious story. I like both actors and characters, so I’d like for them to get more to do, whether together or apart.

Jack: I hope they have a future. Eric and Nicole were ruined for me a long time ago and we don't need any more of them. I prefer Eric and Jennifer even though it bothers me that Eric is giving therapy to his girlfriend's son.

Christine: Eric and Jennifer work great on paper, not on screen. Let's face it, only Alice Horton could make donuts interesting.

Jenn and Eric are a bore to watch. There is absolutely no spark or sense of romance between them. On the other hand, Eric and Nicole may have been a train wreck, but they had incredible chemistry.

If Nicole comes back to Salem, and if Eric learns the truth about why she left, I can’t imagine he’ll be able to stay away from her for very long.

Who is the real father of Abigail’s baby? Do you think the results have been tampered with?

Stephanie: I think the real father of Abigail’s baby is most likely Stefan. There’s no conflict if the baby is Chad’s. At first, I thought Gabi might have tampered with the results when she was alone with the envelope in Kayla’s office, but now I’m not so sure.

Gabi was angry when they arrived, but she seemed to be back to being supportive and concerned when she was waiting for Abigail to open them. I know Gabi is going to get her revenge somehow, but I’m not sure changing DNA results is going to be it this time.

Mikey: It’s totally going to wind up being Chad because this show loves to drag out the drama of the “wrong” person being a baby’s father and then correct it at the 11th hour.

I do enjoy the mystery, as it currently stands, as to whether Gabi fudged the results or not. It’s a fun way to set up the whole thing, even if it’s insane that the lab tech (or nurse? Who knows?) came in and just plopped the envelope down on the desk while Gabi was conveniently there.

Jack: It's probably Chad and the results have probably been tampered with, in an uninteresting rerun of what happened when Thomas was conceived.

Christine: How many times do we have to watch this story? It’s happened so often that it is mind-numbing. Worse yet, this is the second time that Abigail hasn’t known which man is the father of her child with the possibility of the DNA results being tampered with. Enough already!

I think the real father is Chad but the results will say it’s Stefan, because that’s the way it works in Salem.

What, if anything, disappointed you this week in Salem?

Stephanie: I was disappointed that they ended Friday’s episode with Abigail opening the test results and not revealing them to the TV audience. It was a letdown since it was dragged out for the entire episode.

I also think the writers missed an opportunity with her and Kayla. Instead of talking about Ciara, I think it would have been interesting for Kayla to point out to Abigail that this is the second time she’s had to have a DNA test to find out who the father of her unborn child is. If I were a doctor going through this with the same patient twice, I would definitely feel a need to discuss it with them and advise them about how to avoid it in the future.

Mikey: I was disappointed, once again, in Rafe and Hope’s inability to do their jobs properly. Rafe, in particular, was embarrassing when he was haranguing Ben. I shouldn’t be feeling bad for the serial killer, but here we are!

Jack: Too many repeated storylines. Abby's baby drama is the worst offender since we literally did this with the same character a few years ago! Plus, turning it into a who's-the-daddy totally whitewashes the fact that she was raped -- and Kayla should have counseled her about that, as a fellow rape survivor.

This planted drug story also has huge holes in its logic. Neither JJ nor Theresa have any physical symptoms of being high on cocaine, nobody bothered to order drug tests, and the police were not called to arrest anyone when a controlled substance was found in his apartment.

Also, we had too many long flashbacks this week of things that were not needed. And Jennifer's fears for JJ were so completely misplaced that it was obvious she has no clue who her son is. And don't get me started on the non-reality of this DNA switch or how nobody is even trying to redirect Ari's angry behavior in non-destructive ways.

Finally, Hope and Rafe need to lose the attitude and stop trying to violate Ben's rights in order to get a confession out of him!

Christine: We never found out what started the fire in the cabin. We never found out the results of Abigail’s DNA test. We never got any closure about the custody battle, and we still don’t know who absconded with Leo’s body. There were way too many questions left hanging and no answers. It was a very unsatisfying week in Salem.

What was your favorite quote, scene or storyline on this week’s Days of Our Lives?

Stephanie: I loved the banter between Victor and Eve when she came to beg him for help with making sure that Brady won custody of Tate. It was clear how much they hate each other, but it was funny at the same time. Any scene Victor has with a character who he absolutely despises is a riot!

Mikey: As much as the story isn’t gelling for me, I loved Eve telling Victor in this Days of Our Lives quote...

[to Victor] If we stipulate right now that you know a bunch of Greek crap that I don't, can we get down to business?
Eve
Permalink: If we stipulate right now that you know a bunch of Greek crap that I don't, can...
Added: July 14, 2018

I actually laughed out loud. That felt super in-character for her and for how she’d interact with Victor, and it momentarily made me forget about the stupidity of the actual storyline.

Jack: I loved Theresa and Brady's almost reconciliation. I also was surprised by how much I like this Ben storyline now. I thought I would hate this story when I heard Ben was returning!

Christine: I appreciated JJ and Theresa talking through her issues with this custody fight. These two have the most honest, mature conversations on the show.

Want to read more about the happenings in Salem? Check out Jack Ori’s Days of Our Lives review here at TV Fanatic.

View Slideshow: The 23 Most Irritating Characters of All Time

Theresa's original exit story should never have happened.

She pretended to choose drugs over Brady in order to go live with a drug lord who wanted to use her as a sex slave. The idea that Shane would tell her to go do that was equal parts ludicrous and disgusting, and the story made a mockery out of sex trafficking, which is a serious real world issue.

Theresa's return did little to rectify that. In fact, her character spiraled further and further downward, making terrible choices like calling her former captor to give him a heads up that he was about to be ambushed and using her son to try to force Brady to dump Eve and reconcile with her.

The custody battle led to a completely inane storyline around cocaine being planted in JJ's apartment and Eve fearing Brady would be accused of murder.

But as silly as it all was, I have to admit that Theresa's new exit from Salem on Days of Our Lives during the week of 7-16-18 was a real tearjerker.

Part of the reason it was so sad was because I grew up with Shane and Kim and I don't like the idea of Kim possibly dying.

Usually I hate important events happening off-screen, but this time I'm grateful that we probably won't be subjected to seeing a very ill Kim take her last breath. I remember Isabella's death and Lexie's, and they were both uncomfortably realistic.

I don't think I could take seeing Kim go through that too.

I'm glad that despite their differences, Theresa wants to be there for her mother as long as she can be. And I do think it's important for Tate to meet Kim while she's still healthy enough to spend time with him.

I'm surprised Eve didn't want to do more than make a phone call.

Although she and Kim had a tumultuous relationship, at times Kim was a mother figure to her. Among other things, she did miscarry Theresa's older brother or sister as a result of trying to protect Eve from the Riverfront Knifer!

I'd think Eve would at least want to visit even if she can't stay in Los Angeles long term. Besides, that would provide her with the perfect reason to be out of town until this nonsense about someone planting drugs in JJ's apartment blows over.

Anyway, Theresa's heartfelt goodbyes with Eve and Brady made me feel like they'd finally redeemed her character. Despite how selfish she'd been all along, she listened to Eve's suggestion that it might be hard to take care of Tate while dealing with Kim's illness.

Whether Eve was being honest or this was a last ditch effort to try to hold onto Tate, Theresa did consider it and was going to suggest Tate stay with Brady until Brady jumped in and said the opposite.

It was heartwarming to see Theresa finally put her son first instead of being vindictive and manipulative, and doubly so to see Brady make a heartbreaking decision for Tate's benefit as well as make some overtures towards Theresa.

Theresa: You're one of the good guys, JJ Deveraux. You're going to be okay.
[Theresa leaves]
JJ: So are you.
Permalink: You're one of the good guys, JJ Deveraux
Added: July 20, 2018

I also loved Theresa's goodbye scenes with JJ, even though I felt like this was the exit for Paige we were cheated out of.

Paige should never have been killed off. She should have gone off in search of her father or to Stanford or both and she should have acknowledged that JJ was a good guy despite everything that had happened between them.

JJ's loyalty to Theresa didn't make much sense and seemed like he was once again treating another woman like she was Paige. But seeing a woman see the good in him and treat him with respect was a refreshing change from the abusive nonsense he was subjected to both when he was dating Gabi and when he was with Lani.

From Enemies to Friends - Days of Our Lives

The rest of JJ's part in Theresa's story was just plain ridiculous.

I've wanted JJ to have a real storyline for a long time, but I would have appreciated it if he was given one that made some sort of sense and didn't require a bunch of people who should know better to suddenly become idiots.

JJ sacrificed his career for Theresa, claiming that the cocaine found in his apartment was his so she could get custody of Tate. This illogical premise was bad enough, but then it got stupider from there.

The judge took JJ's words at face value despite the fact that he was the only person in the entire courtroom who was capable of making a mature, calm, and logical statement -- hardly traits one would expect from someone who was using cocaine regularly. He also had no physical symptoms of cocaine use.

What he did have was a motive to claim drugs were his when they were not, since it was obvious he was there as Theresa's quasi-boyfriend and wanted her to have custody of Tate.

Even given these facts, the judge did not as much order any of the three potential cocaine users in the room be drug tested before deciding that she was awarding custody to Theresa on the condition that she have no further contact with JJ -- a condition that nobody seemed to care Theresa violated constantly after it was set.

The judge apparently also forgot that cocaine possession is a felony, since JJ was not arrested after confessing to it in open court and no one has mentioned potential legal consequences to this false confession.

Afterwards, Jennifer confronted JJ and initially believed he was using despite the lack of physical symptoms of drug use and his ability to communicate clearly and logically with her. The two had an argument that was reminiscent of back in 2013 when JJ was newly sober and Jennifer believed his continued association with Rory and Bev meant he wasn't.

But the worst part of this farce of a storyline was Jennifer's conversation with Brady.

Brady's insistence that JJ was lying about being clean and telling the truth when he confessed not only made no sense -- after all, if addicts lie then his confession can't be trusted either -- but also was similar to back in 2013 when Brady told Daniel that JJ was buying drugs in order to cover up the fact that he was using cocaine himself.

I was waiting for Jennifer to point that out, but she never mentioned it. What she did mention was that if she thought JJ was using she would put him in treatment again, which was a senseless comment because JJ never went to drug treatment in the first place.

JJ's history does not even include cocaine use! He abused marijuana because he couldn't cope with Jack's death, then stopped when his refusal to use anything harder contributed to Theresa's OD and Daniel told him that he would keep it secret that JJ was at the scene if JJ threw away his baggie of weed and never looked back.

The writers seem to think that if they stick a line in about JJ having been in rehab before, viewers won't remember that never happened and accept their newly created backstory that he is a cocaine addict.

The character who is a cocaine addict is Brady, so it is inconceivable that he is unaware that cocaine use causes pupil dilation, rapid speech, increased sex drive, and a whole host of other physiological symptoms that JJ does not possess.

And it is equally incredible that Kayla -- a doctor with a ton of professional accolades under her belt -- didn't suggest that JJ take a drug test to clear up whether or not he is actually using cocaine instead of giving him a lecture about how he should confess to perjury if he wants to keep his job.

All of these logical inconsistencies could have been avoided by simply having JJ confess to dealing cocaine instead of using it. There would still be the problem of that being a highly illegal act, but at least it would be consistent with his history and wouldn't involve half the town being ignorant of basic facts about cocaine use!

Meanwhile, Gabi's plan to stop Abigail from getting an abortion was offensive on several levels.

I would love to have seen a nuanced, intelligently written story about a woman discovering she was pregnant with her rapist's baby and struggling with the question of whether or not have an abortion.

Instead, what we got was denial after denial that Abigail's rape is indeed rape and Gabi being harshly judgmental of Abigail's decision to terminate the pregnancy.

For years, DAYS has been guilty of having women accidentally get pregnant, consider abortion, and then change their minds at the last minute. That's not great storytelling, but at least it didn't imply that any woman who considers abortion is evil or try to suggest that women are obligated to carry their rapists' babies.

Abortion is an emotionally charged issue, but showing Gabi berating Abigail mercilessly about it isn't an appropriate way to approach it. First of all, Gabi herself almost aborted Ari so it makes her a hypocrite.

It's also obnoxious and no matter how unfair she feels it is that Abigail gets to decide whether to carry to term while Gabi might not be able to even conceive again, it is not her decision to make.

It doesn't help that Abigail's reasons for aborting are less than stellar -- she refuses to accept that if Stefan is the father, the baby is the product of rape and has decided it would be easier for Chad if there was no baby. But whatever her reasons are, that's between her and her doctor and Gabi should not be involved.

Not to mention that Abby is only considering abortion in the first place because Gabi changed the DNA test results. As usual, Gabi's plans have unintended consequences. Last time around, her behavior led to the death of Abigail's father. This time it could lead to the termination of her pregnancy.

Only it won't, because Gabi forced the issue by "accidentally" giving Stefan the phony DNA test.

This was another gross violation of Abigail's right to privacy, and of course crazy Stefan decided the baby really belonged to his imaginary friend and rushed off to stop the abortion.

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I guess I shouldn't be shocked that there was absolutely no security at this abortion clinic and Stefan just waltzed right in to confront Abby, since there's no security at any medical office in Salem. But I'd think an abortion clinic would have MORE security, not less, because of people like Gabi who think they have the right to harass patients into cancelling their procedures.

You know, I know you don't remember, but I always had really good radar when it came to you and right now I'm reading that you're not telling me the truth. So how about you tell me what's really going on?
Kate
Permalink: You know, I know you don't remember, but I always had really good radar when it came to you...
Added: July 20, 2018

Meanwhile, Will became the latest person to be overheard while discussing something in public he didn't want anyone to know about.

He and Sonny were talking yet again about how Leo's body disappeared when Kate wandered into the park and overheard Will's half of the conversation.

You'd think a reporter would be aware of privacy issues and refrain from discussing private matters in the park!

Nevertheless, this did lead to some nice scenes between Will and Kate. I love when Kate shows her softer side, and her reminsciences with Will about when he was first coming out were a great use of history.

It also kept Kate busy while Ted was wasting time arguing with Stefan. I wish just once, someone would say what he has to say and walk away instead of standing around listening to the enemy make a bunch of threats to dissuade him from his plans.

I'm hoping that Ted will help bring Stefan down. Stefan is arrogant, overconfident, and doesn't do anything but threaten people all day long. He is in serious need of being taken down a peg or two and I'd love to see Ted do that.

I have to admit that Kate and Ted are growing on me as a couple. I liked Kate's acknowledgment that it was nice for someone to be on her side for once, and Ted is clearly smitten with her and willing to do anything to protect her.

I just wish they would stop being in such a rush to go to bed. I know that's Kate's MO, but I'd rather see an actual romance build up over time than a race to the bedroom.

Getting Ready For Surgery - Days of Our Lives

The touching scenes in Steve's hospital room showed how many beats are missing in this story.

I felt like I'd missed something when the show opened with these scenes. We'd just seen Roman with Theresa in the Pub and there'd been no mention of Steve's upcoming surgery.

I wish that instead of a random scene of Steve prepping for surgery, there'd been a consistent story about him and Kayla dealing with his blindness and then with the uncertainty and anxiety of waiting to be approved for the surgery.

I loved all the hospital scenes, especially the scene between Steve and Kayla.

But not only should the scenes not have come out of nowhere, but Tripp's visit should have been on-screen and there should have at least been a mention of calling Stephanie and trying to work with the prison to allow Joey to have a video call with Steve prior to the operation beginning.

There was also some more nonsense with Hope and Rafe trying to use police power to force Ben and Ciara apart. They're sure doing a great job of showing how awful it is when cops abuse their power and use mental illness against a suspect to try to get an illegal confession out of him, though I don't understand why Ben didn't demand a lawyer or why he called Ciara instead of one.

And in other news not worth spending a lot of time on, someone sent Will a threatening letter about his involvement in Leo's death. My money is on Stefan, who goes around blackmailing everyone, but I won't be surprised if Leo is still alive and sent it himself.

View Slideshow: The 23 Most Irritating Characters of All Time

Your turn, Days of Our Lives fanatics!

What was your favorite part of Days of Our Lives during the week of 7-16-18?

Is there a storyline that's driving you nuts?

How many holes have you found in the logic of the JJ drug story?

Weigh in below, and don't forget to check back on Sunday for our Days of Our Lives Round Table discussion.

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Days of Our Lives Review: The Things We Do For Love

Days of Our Lives Round Table: Kayla's Deal With the Devil

Days of Our Lives Review: Who's The Most Judgmental?

Days of Our Lives Round Table: Will Lani's Baby Survive?

Days of Our Lives Reviews: Lost Children and Broken Hearts

Days of Our Lives Round Table: Is Chad Going to the Dark Side?

Stephen Nichols Breaks Silence on Days of Our Lives Departure

Days of Our Lives Review: Flirting With Evil

Days of Our Lives Round Table: Who's More Stupid?

24 Couples Whose Love was Denied by Death

1. Mark & Elizabeth - ER

2. Bobby & Diane - NYPD Blue

3. Sawyer & Juliette - LOST

4. Spencer & Maeve - Criminal Minds

5. Phoebe & Cole - Charmed

6. Mark & Lexie - Grey's Anatomy

Days of Our Lives Review: Who's the Worst Parent?

The 23 Most Irritating Characters of All Time

1. Andrea - The Walking Dead

2. Kim - Law & Order: SVU

3. Seg-El - Krypton

4. Carrie - Homeland

5. Jacinda - Once Upon a Time

6. Kimmy - Full House

Days of Our Lives Round Table: Who's Right About Theresa?

Days of Our Lives Review: Here We Go Again

Days of Our Lives Round Table: Who Has Leo's Body?

Days of Our Lives Review: Theresa Leaves Town